A Keeper at the Chalet School
by LisaT
Summary: Elinor BrentDyer Chalet SchoolMZB Darkover crossover. Could the Chalet School during the term of 'Redheads' be a source of new telepaths for Darkover in the aftermath of The Forbidden Tower? Please R & R. Story originally posted on CBB
1. Chapter 1

**A KEEPER AT THE CHALET SCHOOL

* * *

_Prologue_**

* * *

_Arilinn Tower, Cottmann IV, 'Darkover'._

Lorill Hastur, Regent of Darkover, swung himself down from his stallion and handed the reins briefly to the non-human kyrri, standing patiently waiting for the Comyn lord to turn the horse over to him. Then, with an abstracted nod of thanks, Lorill marched into the door of the Tower of Arilinn.

He was completely familiar with it; some thirty years before, Lorill, like many other Comyn children with laran, had come here for the essential training. The proverb that an untrained telepath was a danger to him or herself and everyone else had been proved true too often for the Domain families to ignore such talents. In any case, in these years, those very talents, which were central to Darkovan economy and culture, where becoming all too rare, even in the families of the Seven Domains.

Leonie! Lorill called mentally. To his surprise, no answer returned, and, frowning, the Hastur lord sent out another mental call. A moment later it was answered by the appearance of Lady Janine, Keeper- under Leonie-of Arilinn Tower.

"Where is my sister?" Lorill demanded, courtesies being unnecessary and a waste of time in the current situation.

Janine, a startlingly lovely girl of twenty, shook her head. "She is not well, Lorill," she said sadly. "Ever since-since the Forbidden Tower established itself, Leonie has been filled with melancholy."

Lorill frowned. The Towers were powerhouses of mental and psi activity, and the Keepers who co-ordinated the circles of power were set apart, seen by the uneducated as sorceresses- which was far from the truth- were trained from girlhood to deaden emotion and feeling, since a Keeper, it was believed, must be impassive, emotionless, inviolate.

All of those things Leonie of Arilinn had been; apart from Lorill himself, the only other living creature Leonie could be said to love was the girl who was now responsible for her distress. Callista Lanart-Carr, once Callista of Arilinn, had helped to establish a Forbidden Tower which claimed that, after all, a Keeper need not be almost inhuman; need not sacrifice all that most women held dear.

Callista was now a wife, would soon be a mother, and yet contrary to custom still managed to wield the full force of a very powerful talent, and it was this that Leonie could not endure. She had trained Callista with such care, and even, it must be admitted, such cruelty as always attended the making of a Keeper, and had believed that she could finally lay down the burden of her office to one who was younger and thus better able to handle the great energon rings. And now Callista was lost to the Towers and had defied the Way of Arilinn. It was inevitable that Leonie, the living personification of the Way, should feel it deeply, despite her training and strong will.

"Has she taken her place in the circle?" Lorill asked as he moved towards the currently empty monitor's room.

Janine shook her head. "No, not once, since we were defeated in the Overworld."

"Has she done any laran work at all?" Lorill wanted to know, almost incredulous. As long as he could remember, his twin sister had been determined to exercise her powers within the Towers; preferably, within the Tower of Arilinn, which alone of all the Towers sent its Keeper to sit, in her own right, on the Council.

Now Janine too looked uneasy. "I do not think so. Mostly, she has stayed in her own quarters. I still see her once or twice a day for training, but- that is all."

Lorill looked at the papers he held, and a small smile creased his mouth. "I think I know how to rouse her," he said with more confidence than he felt.

Janine, who could read behind the seeming-confidence, only looked steadily at him, and Lorill found his disquiet returning, but he managed to nod at the girl and then put up his hand to lightly knock on his sister's door.

Before he could do so, it swung open, and he found himself face to face with Leonie Hastur, Lady of Arilinn. In politeness, he bowed to the most powerful woman in the Domains. Leonie- unsurprisingly- did not return the compliment, but simply stepped back unsmilingly and allowed her twin to enter.

Lorill stood and looked at his sister. Like himself, she was tall and slender, and her hair was the deep red of the Comyn. She looked tired, and Lorill felt his heart sink as he noted the lack of spirit in Leonie's eyes. Truly, it appeared that this proud woman had been defeated. Her dress bore this out; for the first time in longer than Lorill cared to remember, Leonie was not dressed in the crimson robes of a Keeper. He opened his mouth to protest, but Leonie simply waved her hand, and sent a thought to him.

Why are you here, my brother?

"To see you, Leonie. Now, listen. You cannot give in in this way. You are still needed. The Forbidden Tower is declared renegade, and all the other Towers will hold to the Way of Arilinn. You are the head of that Way. How can they continue without you?"

"Janine will take my place," Leonie responded tonelessly.

Lorill shook his head. "No, Leonie, she cannot. Janine is a good telepath, but we and you know that she has not the power of Callista Lanart-Carr, Damon Ridenow- or you yourself! Besides which, she has only just begun a Keeper's work and she is too young. She does not have your authority!"

"If Callista had not gone, she would be Keeper now, and she is no older than Janine!" Leonie defended.

Her brother raised an eyebrow at her and she sighed. "Very well. What would you have me do?"

Lorill seated himself and looked at his sister with grave eyes. "We need more telepaths in the Towers and we need them now, Leonie. You, more than anyone, know this. It is crucial to our future if we do not want Darkover absorbed into the Empire!"

"That will never happen!" Leonie replied, her Hastur pride flaring out for a moment, and Lorill suppressed a feeling of relief. He had known- hoped, rather, that pride would rouse Leonie from her despair. It might also cause her to agree to the request he had come with.

"There are fewer telepaths every year," he began, and Leonie waved an impatient hand.

Why do you come here to tell me what I already know?

You seem to have forgotten it! Lorill's mental voice rebuked. You are Keeper, my sister, and you have not laid down your place! Until you do, you are still ultimately responsible for the training of telepaths on Darkover- which means that the declining numbers of those with laran is, or should be, of paramount importance!

"What do you want me to do about it?" Leonie demanded, her fair skin flushing. "Become like the Forbidden Tower, and let any with a trace of laran into the Towers? Take a husband, as Callista did? I suppose she at least is doing her part," she ended bitterly. "She is to have a child, did you know? That child will almost certainly have powerful laran. An increase of one!"

Furiously, she turned away from Lorill, who was watching her with mouth agape. He could not remember the last time he had seen such passion from his twin.

"I want you to go to Terra," he said bluntly at last. "In fact, I want you to travel back to the twentieth century, Terran time, and join a school. It is called," he continued smoothly after a quick glance at his papers, "the Chalet School. Margali Lorne told Rohana Ardais of it. It seems that there could be telepaths at this school. Perhaps- you could assess them, and bring them back?"

"What if they don't want to come?" Leonie asked, ignoring the practicalities of getting from Darkover to Terra and back again.

Lorill smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Leonie, you are Hastur. You have traces of most of the Gifts- including, as I well know, that of Alton- forced rapport, command voice. If you so desire, you can force them to come."

Leonie stood and gazed at her twin as if she had never seen him before. Finally, to his own amazement, she agreed.


	2. Chapter 2

Hilda Annersley, Headmistress of the Chalet School, gave her secretary a rueful smile and leaned back in her chair. "We aren't having much luck so far, are we?" she observed.

Rosalie Dene, a slight fair woman some years younger than the Head, nodded her head in agreement. "It's a shame Sharlie had to leave at just this time," she lamented. "It's always seems more difficult to find suitable mistresses in the summer term, and no-one we've seen so far is even remotely fitted for the position of a junior form mistress!"

Miss Annersley began to laugh. "Certainly the woman we've just seen would be hopeless! They would run rings around her, and, personally, I prefer keeping our juniors in some kind of order. Dear knows they make up for early discipline later! Anyone else, Rosalie?"

Miss Dene consulted her list. "Yes, one more. A Miss Hastur, it says here. Will I send her in?"

Hilda sighed and brushed a wisp of hair back from her forehead. "Yes, you may as well, I suppose. She's worth trying, at least!"

A moment later a tall, slender woman around Hilda's age, with flame red hair and grey eyes not unlike Hilda's own entered. Hilda, always immaculate herself, was startled to see that the other woman had gone against fashion orthodoxy and was clad in a beautifully cut suit of dark crimson. On most red-headed women, Hilda reflected, it would have looked odd. On this one, however...

The Head rose and extended her hand, and after the slightest of pauses, Miss Hastur extended her own. All the same, the handshake was anything but hearty, and Miss Hastur's fingers did little more than brush Hilda's palm.

"Did you have a pleasant trip?" the Head enquired politely.

"It was very comfortable," Miss Hastur replied gravely. She appeared to be squinting, and the Head noticed.

"Is this light too bright for you?" she asked, concerned.

Miss Hastur flashed the other woman a quick, comprehensive glance that made Hilda wonder, and nodded her head. In response, Rosalie moved quickly to shut the blinds and consequently dim the hotel room significantly. Only then did the prospective junior mistress appear to relax.

"Thank you." For the first time she smiled, and the other women realised that she was, or had been, astonishingly beautiful.

Hilda, with a feeling of strangeness she could not identify, attempted to bring this interview to some kind of normality. She collected the papers she held and looked straight at Miss Hastur, piercing grey eyes meeting piercing grey eyes. "Shall we begin?" the Head asked, and the interview commenced.

Leonie did not find the interview difficult. Rohana Ardais had easily agreed to tell her kinswoman all she had gleaned from Magda Lorne about Terran customs, and what was expected of a teacher on Terra. When Leonie, uncharacteristically uncertain, had pointed out that she had never dealt with young children and did not know how to do so, Lady Ardais had pointed out firmly that that was nonsense. Since Leonie had been Keeper, she had trained large numbers of young girls and boys in the use of their laran, and what was that if not teaching?

Furthermore, Rohana had facilitated a meeting between Magda and Leonie, and the Keeper of Arilinn had found herself being given a crash course in Terran Standard. Not that that was difficult; like most telepaths of her power, Leonie was a gifted linguist since she could hear the thought before the words. After that, Magda had provided several books with which she had advised that the Lady Leonie be completely familiar before she arrived in Terra. The space voyage, she suggested, would provide the perfect opportunity for Leonie to do the reading, and also learning something more about Terran life.

Now, she was devoutly grateful to both Rohana and Magda, for Miss Annersley was asking her what experience she had had in teaching.

"I have been teaching since I was little more than a girl myself," Leonie told the Head. "I am experienced in it, I can promise you that."

Hilda smiled. "I am glad to hear that, Miss Hastur. Could you give us some indication of what your experience has encompassed?"

For a split second, Leonie stared at her, and in that moment, Hilda Annersley suddenly found herself seeing a room in a Tower with several young girls...there were instruments Hilda had never seen before, but she knew, somehow, that they were matrix relays...and there was Leonie, in long robes of the same crimson she wore now, sitting beside a young girl with hair as red as Leonie's own...

Shaken, Hilda shook herself mentally. What was that? She made eye contact again with the other woman, and noted that the grey eyes facing her were thoughtful. To her surprise, her prospective new mistress gave her a gentle, reassuring smile, and for a moment, Hilda saw that somewhere, somehow, the woman in front of her was accustomed to great power and authority...

"Do you wish to see my references?" Leonie asked in the soft voice that Hilda had already noted.

Wordlessly, she nodded, and Rosalie Dene gave the Head a furtive glance. What was going on between those two!

Hilda smiled and nodded and glanced quickly at the character reference provided by Rohana Ardais and the 'teaching' reference that Janine Leynier had added, and, after a moment, pronounced them satisfactory.

"I don't think there's anything else," she observed after a long moment. "Miss Hastur, you are unquestionably the best candidate we've had today. If you wish to take up this position, it's yours. Term starts in three weeks."

Leonie rose slowly, and smiled. "Thank you very much, me- Miss Annersley. I will see you then." Hesitantly, she put her hand out to the other woman, but when Hilda extended her own hand, Leonie did little more than brush the Head's fingers. Leonie smiled again and left, leaving Hilda confused again. For a spilt second as their fingers had touched, Hilda was certain she had- well, heard something, but the words had meant very little.

Leonie had thought, _Lorill was right. This school could be a valuable source of laran-gifted girls..._

What, Hilda wondered, was _laran_?


	3. Chapter 3

Leonie had not been surprised when she was offered the job. She had known she would get it; she had a trace of the old Aldaran gift of precognition, and she had known the moment she entered the interview room that she and Hilda Annersley were, in some ways, very similar.

Now, after a week at the Chalet School, she knew that there were also significant differences. Hilda Annersley, for all the power Leonie could see she held within the School, was an innately humble woman. Leonie, as she admitted to herself, was not. At least here on Terra, being Comyn and Hastur meant nothing and less than nothing. Perhaps, she thought a little sardonically, it was time to cultivate a little humility.

More than that, Hilda Annersley had a very real kindness about her that Leonie knew was singularly lacking in herself. Or to put it another way, Leonie was capable of kindness- but it was an essentially a detached kindness, well in keeping with her role. A Keeper was rarely kind. She could not afford to be. Her job was to be above emotion, and that, she sometimes thought, was why empaths made such poor Keepers. Only - Damon Ridenow, himself an empath, was now Keeper of the Forbidden Tower, rather than Callista, who had been Keeper-trained... On the other hand, there was the famous Varzil of Neskaya, historically one of the greatest Keepers Darkover had ever known. He, too, had been Ridenow...

All the same, kindness, or empathy, or whatever you wanted to call it, would be of supreme use to her now. She had seen Miss Annersley place a hand on a pupil's shoulder, and her grasp at that interview had been firm. Leonie, who had been Keeper so long that the conditioning and training had become ingrained in her very being, still found it almost impossible to touch others, or permit touch herself. That too, was something she must remedy. It would be difficult, but not impossible. Callista had managed it, and what her once- pupil could do, she, Leonie of Arilinn, could do also.


	4. Chapter 4

On the second Friday of the term, Leonie gave IIIa one of her rare smiles and dismissed them for the day. Shyly, they returned the smile. All of them liked her, although all of them were also more than a little afraid of her. The truth was that Miss Hastur possessed an air of authority and dignity that was matched only by the Head herself. Teaching, therefore, posed fewer difficulties than even Leonie herself had anticipated. Life on Terra in general, however, was something else.

As a telepath, Leonie had found the adjustment to living with non-telepaths difficult and painful. Years of living at Arilinn- the one Tower in the Domains that was sacred to those of Comyn blood- 'Comyn' was the collective term used to refer to the ruling familes of the Seven Domains- had sensitised her intensely.

Leonie, as Keeper, had incredibly strong shields, but in this world even they did not suffice. She had had to fix her matrix- the telepathic, sapphire-seeming stone that was set in a seal ring on her right hand- to maintain a constant damper at all times. Even then, there were times when she was almost overcome with the constant barrage of thought-stream coming her way. Never before had she been so grateful that she did not possess the Gift of empathy to any significant degree. Hearing what others were thinking was difficult; to be subject to their emotions too would be unendurable.

As a result, there were only a very few people with whom she could truly relax- as far as any woman, Keeper-trained, _could_ relax. One of them was Miss Annersley, with whom she had built an instant rapport that Leonie at least understood, although Hilda was sometimes puzzled by it. There were times when she felt that she knew the new junior mistress better than anyone in the world...Another was a Sixth former, Len Maynard. There were others; Leonie began to assess them, as if she was testing them for _laran_, delighted to find that, after all, her brother's suspicions had been correct.

"There are some strong telepaths here, Lorill," Leonie whispered that night into her starstone.

Leonie had the Hastur Gift of the 'living matrix'. That meant that her powers, without a matrix, were equal to or greater than those of most Comyn with a matrix. With a powerful matrix such as the one in her ring, Leonie's powers were trebled, and before she left Darkover, she had liased with the great relay screens across the planet to construct a special relay- the first of its kind- that would allow a very powerful telepath to communicate telepathically across space. She knew the effort would leave her ill and drained; but it had to be made.

_-Can you tell me more, _came back to her faintly in Lorill's voice. Leonie knew she was better at reaching him, than he, her. Leonie had always been the more powerful of the two.

_-Hilda Annersley. She has several gifts, _Leonie continued_. Ridenow, Alton, Aillard. _

_-Empathy, forced rapport- did you say Aillard?_ Lorill was immediately interested; the old Aillard Domain, the only one in Darkover to pass daughter to daughter, was dying out. Their gift was an unusual and special one- they were- those who possessed it- catalyst telepaths, able to waken _laran _in one who had been unaware of it.

_-Yes_, Leonie responded.

_-How?_ Lorill asked.

_-I do not know_, came his sister's voice. _It is not a strong gift; but she is a powerful telepath and empath. If she were on Darkover, I would train her for Arilinn. _Her voice was wistful.

_-Can you not persuade her?_ Lorill wanted to know.

_-I cannot. You do not understand. In our world, women can only marry, or enter a Tower. _

_-Or become a Free Amazon_, interjected Lorill_. As Melora Aillard's daughter did. _

-Leonie laughed softly. _Yes. But here, they can do so much more. This vai domna Hilda has power. She rules a large school, and her word is law. She is as powerful here, Lorill, as you are in the Council or I at Arilinn! And she is happy. Why should she give it up?_

_-If you can tell her of our world, and your need, my sister, she might offer_, Lorill suggested. _If she is as strong an empath as you appear to think, Leonie, she could not do otherwise. _

_-If she were Callista's age_, Leonie returned wistfully, _I should not hesitate to do so. She would be a powerful Keeper for Arilinn, I believe. _

_-There you go!_ Lorill interjected firmly, if weakly. This sustained inter-planetary communication was draining him fast.

-Leonie, almost without thinking of it, automatically reached out to strengthen and steady him with her own power before she replied.

_-There would be no point in that, Lorill. I wish to lay down my burden because I am no longer young or strong enough to carry it. If domna Hilda were to succeed me, it would only be for a little time, and she would not have time to establish the authority she must have- in the Towers, or in Council, before she would have to step down. And then how could we return her?_

_-H'mmm,_ Lorill replied, decidedly non-committal. _Is there anyone else?_

_-At least two others_, Leonie said immediately. _Their names are Len Maynard and Flavia Ansell._

_-These Terranen have such strange names_, her brother complained.

Leonie continued as if he had not spoken. _But there is one thing. Flavia, the younger girl, is known as 'Copper' by her friends. _

_-Copper? She has red hair, then? _

_-Yes. As red as any of the Comyn. Indeed, she is very like to Comyn- red hair, grey eyes, pale skin. _

_-Has she _laran Lorill demanded.

_-I think she may have a trace of it. She does not like looking at my matrix._

_-Has anyone mentioned it?_ Lorill asked with real curiosity. His sister's matrix, whilst not too large for a pendant, was certainly a large stone for a ring setting.

Leonie began to laugh. _They have asked me when I will marry!_

In spite of himself, Lorill had to repress a grin. _It sounds as if women on Terra are not so very different after all! But what of Len and Flavia?_

_-Len too is a strong empath, and she has some telepathic ability. I do not think she has the Aillard or Alton gift, however. _Leonie paused to think. _But her mother, Lorill_! A tinge of excitement crept into the normally impassive voice of the Lady of Arilinn.

_-What are her gifts?_ Lorill asked resignedly.

_-Aillard, Alton, Ridenow._

_-But you said domna Hilda had all of those!_

_-Yes, but domna Joey has all three in greater measure, and she is a powerful telepath besides_, Leonie affirmed.

_-Is she a widow?_

Leonie paused, stricken. She had not yet met Jack Maynard, but she knew he was very much alive. Which meant, she thought bitterly, that Joey would be of no use. No married woman could be Keeper trained- her channels would not be clear. To interfere with that basic belief, Leonie believed, was to fall into the heresy of the Forbidden Tower, and the Lady of Arilinn felt that she would die rather than accede to them any further than she must.

_-Leonie?_ Lorill's voice was anxious.

His sister gave a sigh of deep weariness. _You are right, _she admitted at last._ Domna Joey is married. More than that, she has several young children. She could not possibly leave that for Arilinn, even if she or we so desired. _

_-So we are back to Len and Flavia_, Lorill observed. _Which do you think is more likely?_

_-I do not know_, Leonie returned despondently. Even she was growing weary now, and the effort of sustaining this communication was telling. _At the moment, Len is the stronger. She is her mother's daughter and has Ridenow in full measure, at least. She is not so strong a telepath, though. Flavia- she is young, nearly as young as Callista was when first she came to Arilinn. Living amongst the head-blind, it is possible that she has not woken to her gifts. _

_-And?_ Lorill prompted, hearing the hesitation in his sister's voice.

_-And, she looks more nearly Comynara than the others do. Len is chestnut, rather than red, but Flavia- she is a true fiery copper. Her nickname does not lie. _

_-Then you must find a way to bring her to Arilinn. Or bring both of them! _the Regent ordered.

Leonie sighed again, remembering those five other girls whom she had trained before Callista. Only Callista had had the strength to endure, and even she had defaulted in the end. Would two be enough? Leonie did not know.

For a second, she remembered her own cry: that there was something very wrong in the way telepaths were trained on Darkover. If she returned there with these girls, would she train them according to the Way, or would she herself modify that harsh training to something more humane? That, too, was something Leonie did not know.


	5. Chapter 5

As it happened, Leonie did not need to approach either Len or Flavia, for events overtook them. At the beginning of the following week, the Head announced that she wanted to call a staff meeting that afternoon in her private salon, and the information she imparted to the staff was enough to distract even Leonie.

"Keep a close eye on Flavia Ansell?" Nancy Wilmot repeated incredulously. "But, Hilda- why?"

The Head sighed. "It would sound too fantastic if I were to tell you everything. Simply accept that the girl is in danger of being kidnapped, and watch her carefully!"

"Elisaveta again, I suppose," Sally Denny interjected cheerfully.

"In some ways, yes. Although I can assure you that to the best of my knowledge, Flavia is not a member of any royal house!"

"I do hope not," murmured Jeanne de Lachennais. "I was not here at the time, but from what I have heard, that was not a pleasant experience!"

"Elisaveta- or the kidnapping?" Miss Annersley asked with an amused smile.

Her Senior Mistress returned the smile. "The kidnapping, of course! Is there anything special you wish us to watch for?"

The Head looked thoughtful. "Just to let me know if anyone asks after a Flavia Letton, or, alternatively, is particularly interested in the red-headed girls."

"Send Leonie out with that crowd then," irrepressible Nancy suggested with a chuckle. "Then they won't know where to begin looking!"

Leonie smiled, a little self-consciously, at the joke, and raised a hand to touch the heavy hair that was coiled low on her neck. It was not as red as it had been, she knew, but it was still red enough to come close to rivalling Copper's.

"Don't tease, Nancy," Kathie Ferrars scolded. "Leonie has lovely hair. I only wish mine was such a colour. I'm just brown all over!"

Nancy grinned. "She's our little wren, isn't she?"

Whereat Kathie reached behind her for a cushion, and pummelled her friend with it until the Head indicated that the tomfoolery should cease.

"That's all for now, I think," she said firmly. "So, if Nancy and Kathie can refrain from damaging my belongings any further, you're all very welcome to stay for coffee. Jeanne?" and Mlle rose to get the coffee pot.

Leonie thought about the Head's words very carefully. Unlike the others, she knew almost exactly what the Head feared for Flavia Ansell. Not because of prying- like all telepaths, Leonie had a horror of deliberately reading another's mind without their knowledge or consent- but because Hilda Annersley had been so anxious that she had, effectively, 'broadcast' her worries.

In Darkover, Leonie would have exercised her authority and insisted that the Head learn to construct better shields; here, she knew that would be inappropriate. As far as the School and Terra were concerned, she was merely the newest junior mistress, although not even Nancy Wilmot had suggested, even as a joke, that the Lady of Arilinn should become 'staff baby.'

Even so, the Head thought over Nancy's suggestion that Leonie accompany the Middles on their rambles, and found it good. It was true that another red-head would confuse matters further, and just to give the muddy waters an extra stir, Len Maynard also found herself allocated to Middles rambles for most of the first fortnight of term.

"I wish I knew what the Head was playing at!" she wailed one day to a select audience composed of Ted Grantley, Rosamund Lilley, and Len's own triplet sisters, Con and Margot.

"What do you mean?" Con asked, her brown eyes wide and alert for once.

Len settled herself comfortably on her desk, and prepared to expound.

"She's only grabbed me and told me I'm to be attached to those beauties in Upper IVa when we go for walks and rambles until half-term!"

Ted's eyebrows shot up. "That's not like her. Why should you get all the dirty work? Even," she continued with a grin, "if it does mean that at least the Staff can guarantee good behaviour from Jack and Co.!"

Len glared at her friend. "Don't talk such rot! And be careful who you say that 'round. That sounds almost like you think I can handle the brats better than the staff can!"

"Never mind her," Con interjected peaceably. "Didn't the Head tell you why? Like Ted says, it's not like her to put one of us with the same crowd for so long. Especially since that crowd have some of the worst sinners in the entire school!"

Len shook her ruddy head. "She didn't say a thing. Only-well – " She paused and looked puzzled.

Margot, who was not noted for her patience, joggled her sister with her arm. "Well- what? Go on, Len!"

Len frowned. "I'm not certain of it, so don't quote me on this, but- I have a feeling that it's something to do with that new kid Copper. Don't ask me why, but- that's what I thought when Au- the Head- had finished talking, and then she turfed me out before I had a chance to say anything."

"Why would you think that?" Ros Lilley demanded.

Len shrugged. "Don't know, so don't ask me. Well, I suppose it'll all come out in the wash!" and the prefect departed to prepare for the day's ramble up at the Rosleinalp.

It was a pleasant day- perfect for a ramble- but Leonie felt decidedly uncomfortable. It was partly that she did not really know these Middles, partly the feeling that something would happen on the walk, and partly the brightness of the day. Even after a couple of months on Terra, Leonie still found the bright light disconcerting, although it was no longer as painful as it had been to start with. She was happiest in her own little room, for she had been able to alter the formation of the light bulb in the bedside lamp so that it glowed red with a light that reminded her of the distant Bloody Sun.

They had just met up with the girls of St Hilda, and were walking along the track, when Leonie found herself walking next to Len Maynard, and the new mistress glanced carefully at the girl. Sensing Leonie's thoughts, Len turned and smiled.

"This is gorgeous, isn't it, Miss Hastur?"

Leonie smiled in response. "It is indeed lovely, but I am not used to living in the mountains, so it is very new to me."

Len laughed. "Oh, I am. I've been living here now since we three were ten, although before that we lived mostly at Howells in Armishire."

Leonie smiled again. "You love it now, though, I can see! You will miss it when you leave," she continued.

Len's mouth dropped. "How did you know that?" she gasped. "I've never told anyone that, but part of me dreads going to Oxford and being away from all- all this!" and her hand flung outwards to encompass the panoramic views.

Leonie smiled and said nothing, but inside she was cursing her own stupidity. This girl was very sharp, and Leonie was becoming increasingly certain that everything she had told Lorill was true, but that did not mean to say that she was prepared to confront Len with her own story, or to make Len face up to her Gifts.

After all, the girl was clearly in her late teens. If she was going to have threshold sickness, she would have had it by now, so the situation was not imperative. Yet- 'an untrained telepath is a danger to herself and everyone else'. For the first time since she had taken the Keeper's oath, Leonie was finding herself constrained professionally, and she did not like it.

Anxious, Leonie walked in silence. After a moment, sensing she wanted to be alone, Len drifted away to be hailed by Jack Lambert and her extended gang, which included various girls from St. Hilda's. Leonie walked on. She was jolted out of her private thoughts when she sensed the presence of a fellow telepath, someone who was fully aware and in control of their _laran_, and, cautiously, Leonie checked that her own shields were as firm as they could be. Then, thoughtfully, she disarmed the damper that was built into her matrix, and awaited events.

She did not have long to wait. Walking close by the Gang and Len, she heard Len call some girls back, indignantly, and warn them about running on. Vaguely, she heard their responses, and Len's laugh floated towards Leonie.

"I thought that would do it!" the prefect said to Flavia, who was walking beside her with Wanda von Eschenau. "I must go and talk to Kitty and Mary from St. Hilda's. Don't you become so absorbed in the view that you forget and do a neat walk over the edge yourself," she finished with a chuckle before going off.

Some five minutes later, they met up with Ted Grantley and her party, all of whom were complaining bitterly about the flies, who were particularly rampant this year, even though it was nearly October. Len the weatherwise reminded them that the temperature would begin to drop shortly.

"We may expect night frosts, once October comes in," she declared. "That puts paid to the flies. Oh! I beg your pardon!" and Leonie, walking a little behind, snapped to attention as she heard Len say in a slightly different tone, "Can we do anything for you?"

The smartly dressed woman lost no time. "I wondered if you could tell me the nearest way to the station," she said, her voice overlaid with a heavy American accent. Only Leonie recognised it as false. "I guess I've missed the road, way back in the woods," the woman went on. "I don't want to be benighted up here and wandering alone among trees don't appeal to me. Which way is the shortest to the railway?"

Len, trained from babyhood to politeness, helped the woman as best she could. The stranger then departed, and she brushed past Leonie as she moved towards the station. Then, the _leronis_ heard, to her alarm, the woman's thoughts.

"Now have I been lucky or have I? What was it Dwight said about that kid? Long red pigtails- but they're easily cut off. Mind," the woman continued in her own mind, "there were that many red-headed kids there. The big one I spoke to had red hair herself. But it can't be her. She must be seventeen or eighteen and Dwight said the one they were after was twelve or thirteen; maybe a bit more. That settles it! I'm not telling Dwight until I'm sure. You watch your step, Lou Manley. Dwight is no man's pet when he gets mad. But- even if it's not her, it's no matter. All them red-headed girls. Surely one of 'em must have _laran_. The Empire'll pay us well for them!"

The woman moved on, and Leonie stood looking after her, a suspicion dawning. All the same, one thought kept recurring. Just _how_ had a woman of the Domains gained such fluency in American idiom? Then Leonie smiled wryly. Like all telepaths, the other woman was undeniably linguistically gifted. That was not an issue. What was more worrying, at least to Leonie, was the question of what other powers the woman might have, and how she might use them against the Chalet School and, more especially, Darkover.

It was well that the rest of the trip was more or less uneventful. True, Len had to kill a viper, which created enough of a sensation and caused both Nancy Wilmot and Kathie Ferrars, to say nothing of Len herself, to look green, but that had been a natural event.

Or was it? Leonie thought very carefully. It could have been natural. In fact, it almost certainly was, she reassured herself. If it had been _laran_-conjured, only a matrix could have killed it. As it was, Len Maynard had done a rather good job of that, and she had not used any kind of psi powers in the process.

Stop worrying! Leonie told herself. If only she knew why Luisa Aldaran- even if she was calling herself Lou Manley- wanted Copper. That brief contact with the 'American' woman had told the Keeper all she needed to know about the woman if not her motives, and she was now seriously perturbed. But what could she do about it?

Once again, she reminded herself that she was only a junior mistress- more junior, even, than either Kathie Ferrars or Nancy Wilmot. She could not even mention it to Hilda Annersley. As far as she knew, the latter had no idea of Leonie's true origins, and the story behind the threatened kidnapping of Flavia was quite worrying enough for the Head, Leonie thought, without anything extra! All the same...

When they returned to School, the two younger mistresses had insisted on going to the Head, and Leonie did not demur. Miss Annersley treated their story lightly- on the surface, at least.

"My dear, don't let your imagination run loose," she told Miss Ferrars kindly. "If you are going to suspect every stranger who asks you the way or the time, you're going to have grey hairs before term ends. You were quite right to tell me; Flavia is a big responsibility; but keep your sense of proportion whatever you do." She went on to make a couple of comments about the snake and Len, and then dismissed them with a reassuring smile.

Nancy and Kathie departed quite happily. Leonie, however, lingered.

Hilda Annersley smiled again, rather cautiously this time.

"Did you want to speak to me, Miss Hastur?"

Leonie forced herself to laugh. "Oh, please do not call me that. I am not used to it! I am Leonie, please."

Hilda relaxed and laughed in her turn. "Very well, 'Leonie' it shall be. And, as I'm sure you now know, I'm Hilda. Was there something you wished to say to me?"

Leonie was silent for a moment. "It was just this: that, if I may, I will accompany all excursions that involve Upper IVa. Is that possible?"

Hilda looked startled. "Certainly, it's possible. But why should you want to? They are, by and large, a pack of young demons, and you're a junior mistress."

"I know that, but given the circumstances, I would rather be nearby. You see," Leonie continued, "I think that that woman we met today does have something to do with Flavia. It-it's a sixth sense, if you like," she finished, wondering if that was vague enough.

Hilda Annersley gave her a long look. "Sometime, Leonie Hastur, you must tell me more about yourself," she said at last. "In the meantime, if you wish it, certainly you may accompany Upper IVa. Extra supervision never does hurt that crowd, and I confess that knowing an additional mistress is with them will relieve my anxiety. Thank you, Leonie."

Leonie's eyes met Hilda's. "I know it will help," Leonie said softly. "I have my own reasons for wishing to stay near to Flavia. Someday, I hope you will understand them." With a nod that was almost a bow, Leonie removed herself from the study and left Hilda staring.


	6. Chapter 6

The next incident was even more worrying, and proved Leonie's suspicions. Matron had made one of her periodic dental checks, and, inevitably, discovered that a number of girls needed attention, and consequently arranged for a visit to Herr von Francius in Berne. Amongst the victims were Len and Margot Maynard and Flavia Ansell, so Leonie, together with Barbara Henschell- one of the younger Matrons- and Matey herself, travelled down as escort.

The dental appointment was sufficiently unpleasant for the girls for Matron to want to take pity on them when their ordeal was done. Therefore, the Staff carted the girls off to a restaurant for a light meal which aided the recovery process considerably, and then the girls were marched off to the salon where they would await the motor coaches that would return them to school.

"That gives us almost twenty minutes to wait," Matey finished, "so you may as well make the most of it."

"Oh, fabulous!" Leonie heard Mollie Rossiter whisper to her neighbour. "We shan't get back to school until 16:00 hours with luck, and that means missing dictee and needlework!" Whereat Miss Rossiter looked up to meet the thoughtful grey gaze of the junior mistress, and she blushed and subsided.

Meanwhile, two strangers had entered, and Leonie saw with a niggle of alarm that one of them was the so-called Louella Manley. Both Matron and Barbara Henschell were otherwise engaged, and Len, being nearest, went to say something. Leonie watched her carefully. Len Maynard, too, was redheaded, and Leonie remembered her own comments to Lorill about the girl's latent _laran_.

"I beg your pardon," Len was saying. "But this salon is in private use at the moment and-"

"Well, now if it isn't the nice girl who showed me the way to the railroad up at that place in the mountains!" exclaimed Louella. "I said we'd likely be meeting again and here we are! I'm real pleased to meet you again, my dear."

I'm sure you are, Leonie thought. Aldaran or not, it does not take prescience to know you would see them again when that is your very purpose here.

At that, Louella glanced sharply at Leonie, and Leonie, confident that her shields were in place, smiled benignly. She was certain Louella could not recognise her; Louella, as an Aldaran, would not be in the Tower relays, and also as an Aldaran, would have had no need to meet Leonie Hastur of Arilinn.

Len, meanwhile, was coping well. "I remember," she began cautiously. "But I'm afraid I can't stop to talk. We've been to the dentist and some of us have had a bad time, so we are resting here. I'm sorry, but will you please go."

"Why, yes, if that's so," Louella replied ingratiatingly. "I'm right sorry to hear that. But you won't have far to go? Where did you say your school was?"

Len opened her mouth to reply, when an urgent thought flashed across her mind.

-_Do not tell her_! commanded Leonie.

Len reacted instantly. "Oh no; and in any case the school coach will be coming for us so that will be all right," she continued, ushering Louella and her companion towards the door. "I'm sorry to seem rude, but I'm afraid I must ask you to go now."

Louella made one last attempt. "Yes, of course. Oh, by the bye, a friend of mine has a girl at school here but- er- she didn't tell me the name of the school, and I'm wondering if by any chance it could be yours. Flavia Letton is her name- a girl of about twelve or thirteen. Have you a Flavia Letton amongst your girls?"

-_Do not look at Flavia! _instructed Leonie, and Len, although puzzled, obeyed.

In any case, the girl thought, Flavia was Ansell and not Letton, so- "There is no girl of that name in our school," she told Louella firmly.

"Oh? Not a girl with long red hair- she wears it in plaits, I know." There was the faintest emphasis on 'red' that Leonie, at least, understood. To Louella, as to Leonie herself, red hair indicated laran talent, although Leonie was beginning to realise that this did not always hold true on Terra.

Len, however, was now feeling decidedly uncomfortable. This woman made her feel creepy and nervous, and that was not a feeling that the self-possessed eldest Miss Maynard relished. Besides, she was tiring of this conversation. Therefore, she told Louella- rather sharply- that the school had several redheads, including Len herself, and went on to suggest that Louella's 'friend' –Leonie, at least, appreciated the veiled scepticism Len injected into that word, and so, judging by the dull flush that covered her cheeks, did Louella- give her the precise details of her daughter's school.

Louella, realising herself foiled, agreed and backed off, and at that point, Matron Henschell intervened, to Len's evident relief. Barbara dealt rapidly and trenchantly with the interlopers before turning back to the prefect.

"What did they say?" Barbara demanded.

Len provided a brief resume of the conversation- involuntarily glancing at Leonie as she did so- and Barbara nodded.

"Did you say anything about Flavia Ansell?" she asked anxiously.

"No. Somehow I felt- queer about her- that woman," Len began, and Leonie smiled to herself. There was no doubt about it- Len Maynard was definitely a telepath, even if she did not recognise it herself.

"-all the same-" Leonie heard Len falter to a stop.

"Well? All the same what?" the young Matron prompted.

"She said the girl she wanted had long red hair and I remembered that when that kid Copper came, she did have pigtails even though they were cut off almost at once. I-wondered."

"I see," Barbara said. "Well, I can't tell you anything, but please keep this to yourself. I must see the Head and discuss it with her."

Len agreed to this easily, and went to sit down in the seats opposite Leonie. All the same, throughout the journey home, Leonie was conscious that the girl was glancing at her.

_I must get her alone and explain to her_, she thought. _She needs the training and she needs it now. I just hope I can make her understand._

The following day, Miss Annersley summoned her brevet niece to the study. She had decided to reveal a certain amount; Len, she knew, was perceptive enough to put two and two together and possibly make seven or eight. The Head did not want the situation to become more difficult than it already was!

After some forty five minutes, Len found herself dismissed with a gentle suggestion that she tell any interested parties that they had been discussing Len's scholarship work for Oxford. After she had bobbed her curtsy and closed the study door, the prefect stood in the hall way in some confusion.

The Head's revelations had not, in actuality, come as any surprise. Len had had her own suspicions- but that wasn't what disturbed her now. It was the fact that, in that moment of shared laughter over Prudence Dawbarn's newfound studiousness, Len had suddenly known exactly what Miss Annersley was going to tell her- and a little bit more.

But that couldn't be right, could it? Such a thing was impossible! Len had always been told that she, like her mother before her, had the ability to 'get into the skins' of other people. That was all very well, and Len had nothing against that- even if it did mean that she ended up feeling responsible for the world and their neighbour. But- that wasn't the same thing as actually knowing what someone was thinking! Being able to read their minds! And that, Len was certain, was what had happened in the Study.

In the staffroom, Leonie felt Len's newly wakened laran powers burst across her mind like a beacon, and she rose as quickly as she could.

"Where are you off to, Leonie?" asked Rosalind Moore, head of Geography, genially.

Leonie forced a smile. "I have remembered something I must fetch from my room," she told the younger woman, and left before one or other of her perennially curious colleagues could be moved to enquire further.

Once the staffroom door had closed behind her, Leonie stopped. She could hear- and even feel, a little- Len's confusion and even outrage as she moved towards her own quarters. In another couple of minutes, the opportunity would be lost as the girl was swallowed up amongst her peers.

-_Len!_ Leonie called, throwing all her power behind it.

-_I'm dreaming_, she heard think Len in response. _I could have sworn I heard someone call me in my mind, but that's ridiculous. I'll just go back to the common room, and try to forget all about it._

-_Mary Helena Maynard! You are not dreaming. I am standing outside the staffroom door._

_-Uh. Um. Who is this?_

_-It is Leonie Hastur! Come to me now, please._

There was such authority in that command that Len found herself moving, almost involuntarily, towards the staffroom and Miss Hastur.

"Ah, there you are," said Miss Hastur casually as Len approached her. "You certainly did not lose any time! Now, you and I must have a discussion, I think." Leonie stopped and glanced at Len. "In fact, my girl, you may come to my room. It will be easier to talk there."

Dumbly, Len nodded, and followed the mistress unprotesting and unresisting to the latter's own room on the staff corridor. Once there and seated, she recovered a little and looked about her with real interest. Whilst she was familiar with the appearance of the Head's private quarters, this part of the School was completely unknown to her.

-_It's so pretty!_ she thought, her eyes taking in the fresh colour on the walls, and the carefully co-ordinated furnishings.

"It is nice, isn't it," Leonie responded calmly as she went to her drawer to retrieve a small wooden box.

Len gasped. "You- you did it again!"

Leonie seated herself in the chair opposite the girl, and looked straight into her eyes.

"Did what, exactly?" she asked gently.

"You spoke to my mind," Len whispered. "It was you, wasn't it, both at the dentist's and that day we went on the walk."

"Yes," Leonie replied softly.

"But-but- why? How? I-I don't understand!"

"I don't expect you to," the older woman told her. "But, if you like, I can explain it to you."

"Please do!" Len begged. "I-I've thought I was going nuts! I was even going to-to tell Papa, and I felt so stupid and silly and it wasn't right, knowing what Auntie Hilda was going to say before she said it, and then I knew how worried she was feeling and it made me nervous too and I don't like this! Please, can't you make it stop, Miss Hastur?"

"I cannot do that," Leonie said. "However, you must not despair, my child. I cannot stop it- but I can teach you handle it- as, indeed, by the oath I took, I must. And then you will find yourself able to live with it, and even to use it."

"Let me get this straight," Len began firmly. "I-I don't want to be rude, Miss Hastur, but you are telling me that it's quite OK-er, normal- to hear what other people are thinking?"

"For some people, yes!" returned Leonie with equal firmness. "In my-country, we even have words for it- _donas, laran_."

"Donas- that's from Latin, isn't it, for gift," Len said thoughtfully. "Is that what you call it, Miss Hastur?"

Leonie smiled. "Len, by the time I finish training you, you will know nearly as much about me as I will about you. I think it would be well for you to call me 'Leonie'- when we're alone, of course!"

Len grinned and relaxed for the first time. "It'd need to only be then," she declared. "Auntie Hilda would have a fit if she heard me yelling 'Leonie' all over the shop!"

Leonie laughed. "I am sure she would. But enough of this. At it's most basic, laran means that you are a telepath- which means that not only can you read someone's mind, but you can also communicate with another telepath without speech." Deliberately, Leonie stopped using her voice at "read someone's mind" and she continued in a mental voice, as a test.

"I see," said Len thoughtfully. "Like you did to me earlier."

Leonie suppressed the feeling of triumph and relief that welled up inside her. This proved that not only was Len a telepath, but she was, potentially, a powerful one. Yet at the same time Leonie was swamped with sadness. _Lorill, Rohana, Damon and Callista all tried to tell me this of the Terrans, she thought. But I would not listen, and so Arilinn was challenged for my fault and disbelief.._

"What is Arilinn?" Len asked curiously, and Leonie started in horror as she realised that she had forgotten to raise her shields.

"It is a place in my country," Leonie began slowly, "where telepaths are trained to use and work with their gifts. I have spent most of my life there..." and Leonie paused as a wave of homesickness swamped her.

"Oh, OK," said Len easily, although her grey eyes were questioning. At the word 'Arilinn' she had had the same mental picture that the Head had recieved at Leonie's interview: _Leonie, tall, regal, withdrawn, in robes of crimson, bending over a red-headed, grey-eyed girl.._

Len shook herself, mentally, and told herself firmly to get a hold of herself. This was becoming ridiculous, telepath or not! And then she marvelled at how quickly and easily she had accepted Leonie's verdict of Len's own telepathic abilities.

"You say I have to learn how to use this," Len began cautiously. "How do I do that?"

Leonie looked at her. "The first step is key you into a matrix."

"What's that!"

"It is a crystal which amplifies the energies generated by telepaths, and can be used to focus those energies."

"How big is it?" Len asked. "If it's too big I'll have to leave it in my dormitory or leave it at home. School rules!"

"No, Len," Leonie returned softly. "Once you are keyed into the matrix, you may not remove it far from you for any reason, and only your Keeper may touch it. To touch or remove the keyed matrix of another person is always painful and occasionally fatal."

Len whitened. "But-but, you said it was a crystal! A stone! I thought you meant it was like a piece of jewellry!"

In reply, Leonie reached into her pocket and retrieved her matrix-ring from it's silken pouch. With an eye on Len, she cradled the stone in her hands, as if it was a living thing, and Len blinked and looked away.

"Can you look into the matrix?" Leonie asked, her voice the toneless, impassive voice of a trained Keeper.

"I don't want to," Len said. "It makes me- feel funny."

"That is a good sign," Leonie told her. "Look again."

Compelled, Len obeyed, and for a moment she was able to see the swirling fires within the crystal and she felt Leonie reach out and touch her mind.._it was like being touched with a flame like a bunsen burner..blue and crimson..._and then nausea swept over her and she looked away again.

Leonie covered her matrix.

"I have covered the matrix, Len," she said softly, and Len looked up.

"Did it work? Why did it make me feel so sick?"

"It makes you feel ill because- if you have the talent- it opens up and forces you to use parts of your brain you do not normally use." The Keeper paused and looked thoughtfully at the girl. "But first, I think you need something to eat." Quickly, Leonie rose and retrieved some chocolate from a cupboard.

"Eat this!" she commanded, handing the small bar to Len.

"I couldn't, I'd be sick!" Len protested.

"You must eat it," Leonie insisted. "This is one of the most important things you will learn: after matrix or laran work, the vital energies become very low, and you would become very very ill if you do not replenish them quickly with food. So, yes, you feel sick now- but, believe me, once you have eaten you will feel better."

Dubious but obedient, Len took a square of the chocolate, and forced herself to eat it. Then another. Then, suddenly, she was ravenous, and the rest of the bar disappeared rapidly, to Leonie's relief and secret amusement. Once Len overcame her initial reluctance, she had obviously devoured the bar with great satisfaction.

Seeing the smile, Len blushed and grinned, rather sheepishly. "I didn't know I was so hungry!" she defended. "What next?"

In answer, Leonie produced another matrix crystal, a little smaller than Leonie's own, and Len shrank from the sight of it.

"Oh, please no, not again," she begged.

"You must," Leonie told her inexorably: a Keeper once more. "An untrained telepath is a danger to herself and everyone around her, and matrix work is part of that training."

"Why is it dangerous?" Len demanded, with a rare flash of rebellion.

"Because if you are not trained to master your _laran_, it could drive you mad," Leonie told her bluntly. "Think of it, Len: hearing always what others are thinking, all day, all the time- whether they've done their prep, whether they'll be caught for sliding down the banisters, whether so-and-so will talk to them today and so on. Could you endure that?"

Len swallowed. "No," she admitted. "But why is it dangerous to others?"

"That depends in part on the nature of your Gift. For instance, if you have what we call 'forced rapport' or 'command voice' then you could potentially do great harm. Similarly, you may inadvertently read that which you are not meant to know."

"What's forced rapport?"

"The ability to make telepathic contact with anyone, with or without their consent."

Len whitened a second time. "That's a horrid thing to do!"

Leonie nodded gravely. "Indeed, and the ability to do so is greatly feared. But think, my child, there could be times when such a gift could be essential, and could save lives."

Len sighed and wriggled, and for a moment she looked much younger than her age. A gentler woman might have released her, but Leonie had taught lessons harder than this to girls several years younger than Len, and she winced a little as she remembered the harsh lessons she had had to give to the child Callista. Then there were the lessons Leonie herself had had to learn, at sixteen, when she had left the safety and warmth of Dalereuth Tower for the full rigour of Keeper-training at Arilinn...

-_This child has come late to laran work, by our standards_, Leonie thought, _but by our standards a girl is a woman grown from the time she begins her monthly periods. Here, she remains a child until she leaves home and school and goes into this world to make her own way._

"OK," Len said decisively, rousing Leonie from her uncharacteristic reverie. "How do I become keyed?"

"You must match resonances with the stone," Leonie told her. "When you have done that, you will see it come alive with a flame- as mine is. A matrix without its flame of life is dead- useless."

"I see," said Len, frowning with concentration. After a moment, she took a deep breath, and Leonie, correctly interpreting this for the signal it was, handed the starstone to the girl.

"Look into it, and relax," she told the girl, her voice impassive again.

Len nodded and obeyed. She looked deep into the crystal, and relaxed and let her mind flow where it would- and after a moment, she felt the stone grow warm and a faint, warm blue light began to glow within it.

"Now match your breathing and heartbeat to the pulsing in the stone," Leonie instructed, and Len looked at the matrix again and realised that the light within the stone was indeed throbbing- rather erratically, it must be confessed- and the girl watched in awe as she saw the throbbing light steady in response to her own steadied breathing and heartrate.

"Good. Now I am going to come into rapport with you," Leonie warned, and almost before Len was ready, she felt again that touch on her mind. This time it was firmer rather than the delicate touch of earlier, and Len, still watching the matrix, knew that her unease was reflected in that pulsing light.

-_Relax_, Leonie told her gently, yet authoritatively, and Len reacted almost automatically to that authority and obeyed.

-_Now we will hold the rapport for a moment or two, _Leonie said, aware that newly awakened telepaths sometimes found this exercise both difficult and frightening, because of the element of invasion that characterised early stages of rapport. With time, most telepaths came to love and even need the deep sense of intimacy that rapport provided.

Len, still with that feeling of strangeness, began to match her own breathing to Leonie's, and the Keeper felt satisfied that her tentative assessment of Len's Gift was correct. Usually only empaths were able to match resonances so quickly.

-_Well done,_ Leonie told her. _Now move gently out of rapport. Never withdraw suddenly, for in a circle, the backlash can be unpleasant._

Len nodded physically to show her understanding, and, together, they disengaged from the intense telepathic connection.

"Wow!" said Len, rather shakily.

With an eye to the girl's white face, Leonie provided yet another bar of chocolate, and earned an amused look of her own from Len in the process. The girl was not to know that chocolate was almost unknown on Darkover- except perhaps in major Trade Cities like Thendara, and Leonie did not care to speculate about the availability of chocolate in Aldaran lands. This time, Leonie took some of the chocolate herself.

When they had eaten, Len grinned rather tiredly.

"What next?"

"Nothing more for the moment," Leonie told her. "That exercise will have shown you how to both make and withdraw contact, and that is the first step in building your shields. Next time, we will work on strengthening those shields and spend longer periods of time in rapport. Eventually, I will train you to monitor."

"What's that?" Len asked as she wiped her chocolately mouth with her hanky, grimaced at the resultant mess, and carefully folded it before replacing it in her pocket.

"Basically, a monitor can 'see' what lies beneath the skin. They can regulate heartbeat and breathing rates for telepaths doing long term matrix or laran work, and some are trained as healers. If you are interested, I will tell you more later, but I am sure you have work of your own to do, and the other mistresses will not appreciate it if their work is not done."

Len rose. "That's true. I'll go on now." She smiled rather shyly. "Thanks, Mi- Leonie."

Leonie nodded in dismissal, but when the door had closed behind Len, she remained motionless for a long moment before sighing and turning to prepare for her own return to the staffroom.


	7. Chapter 7

The next couple of weeks were comparatively uneventful. Leonie and Len continued to accompany Upper IVa on rambles- as the Head had pointed out, for them to go along every time would soon have been noticed and commented on, and the last thing Miss Annersley wanted to do was to draw attention of any kind to that particular form. Girls, she knew, were liable to gossip, and there was no knowing who would overhear.

Leonie, when told of this dictum, had agreed whole-heartedly, but with inward qualms. Louella was Comyn- even if the Comyn had exiled her family- and she had laran. Would distance be enough safeguard Copper?

Only time would tell, but the anxiety provided an incentive to continue the training sessions with Len Maynard. Not, Leonie mused ironically, that she had needed that incentive, but by now Len herself had been able to see the potential advantages- and even guess, a little, something of Leonie's background- and that had certainly acted as a spur to the girl.

Sometimes the Keeper chafed at the inherent restrictions of her position; at Arilinn, by now Len would have taken her monitor's oath, and, if she had the talent for it, would be working towards qualifying as a matrix mechanic or technician. Although, as it happened, Leonie did not believe Len would be outstandingly gifted in either of those capacities- she would probably make a satisfactory technician, and was not sufficiently scientifically minded to act as a mechanic- which meant helping to physically build the matrix relay screens.

On the other hand, the girl was proving to be an outstanding monitor, and increasingly, Leonie was beginning to wish she could have her for Arilinn. Since Callista's departure, an already small circle had shrunk. A competent monitor who had neither the talent nor the desire to be more would free the current monitor, who was skilled in other areas of laran work, but was too badly needed, under the circumstances, in her present post.

Len herself began to look forward to the sessions with Leonie. As that lady had predicted, she was now coming to actively enjoy the work and the total intimacy and acceptance that came from working in rapport with another. However, it was not to be expected that her new relationship with the junior mistress should be overlooked.

"Len, when you've finished here, Miss Denny wants to see you in her room," Con Maynard told her sister one afternoon at Kaffee. Len was on duty that day and had fully expected to go from there to Leonie, so now she groaned and looked furtive.

"I suppose it's over my last Spanish prep," she said resignedly. "I knew it wasn't very good- I couldn't concentrate, somehow, last night, but I didn't think it was as bad as all that!"

Con grinned. "Not being able to concentrate doesn't sound like you," she agreed. "But where were you hoping to go? You looked really peeved when I gave you the message."

"I was supposed to go to Miss Hastur for some-er- coaching," Len said, improvising wildly. Then she turned in relief to her next supplicant for coffee, and handed a cup over.

"There you are, Prue! And cheer up, do. No-one blames you for that little ass Val Gardiner going dicky-dancing all over the place."

"That's what Priscilla said," Prudence Dawbarn replied gloomily. "All the same, I can't help feeling it was my fault. Young Val has gone from frying pan into the soup with everyone lately, and I suppose the ticking off I gave her was the last straw. Besides," she continued, her fair face flushing, "I can quite see it would annoy any of that crowd being told off by me. Me, you know!"

In spite of themselves, both Maynards grinned. Prudence had become a byword for heedlessness in her younger days, and there was some truth in what she said now.

"Don't be such a donkey," Con told her briskly. "That was then and this is now. And the fact is, you're a Senior and she's a Middle. You were perfectly within your rights for pulling the kid up for breaking rules, and Val will be back soon. You'll see!"

"Does the Head know she's gone?" Prudence asked anxiously, ignoring this. She had already had a session with her twin sister, Priscilla, but neither her words nor Con's now made any real difference to how Prudence was feeling at this time, so she preferred to change the slant of the conversation a little.

Len filled the last cup of coffee with a sigh of thankfulness, and then took a cup of her own over to a table with her sister and Prudence. Kaffee was the only meal of the day when the girls might eat without adult supervision, and it was a jealously guarded privilege, so there was rarely any trouble.

"Surely she does know by now," Con said doubtfully. "I can't see them keeping it from her when-"

"Len!" All three girls turned and rose at the sight of Miss Hastur.

Leonie nodded politely at Con and Prudence, and turned to the girl she was seeking.

"Would you come with me please? There is something I must speak of to you."

Con's black eyebrows disappeared into her hair as Len left her half finished coffee and disappeared with the new mistress.

"It looks like Len has forgotten to go to Sally," she observed wryly.

"Sally probably didn't want her for anything much," Prudence told her glumly. "Len just doesn't get into trouble. Besides, if you're that bothered, I suppse you could always go to Sally yourself and tell her that Len was snaffled before she could get over?"

"I suppose I could do that," Con agreed unwillingly. She paused, and then it burst out. "But I just don't understand it! Miss Hastur seems nice enough, but she doesn't teach any of us. Why does Len spend so much time with her?"

Prudence, unsurprisingly, had no answer to this, and Con let the subject of her sister's associates drop and returned to the Prefect's Room to write an essay on Maria Edgeworth's Irish novels. Prudence returned to her own quarters to do likewise, and thought no more about it.

Meanwhile, Len turned to the mistress as soon as they left the Speisesaal. She did need to ask why Leonie had called her, and Leonie, knowing it, did not waste time in explanations.

"There is something I must ask you," she said abruptly. "It is not ethical; but still, I must ask."

"About Val?" Len queried, puzzled.

"Not precisely. When you spoke to Miss Annersley- was there anything you sensed that could help us now?"

Len's eyes widened; she had been training long enough to know that Leonie was breaking a taboo amongst telepaths in asking what Len had discovered from that inadvertent contact with the Head's anxious mind.

Leonie, knowing what the girl was thinking, schooled her face to impassivity while she waited. Once again, she thought, I am Keeper, and responsible only to my own conscience for what I do- yet here on Terra that old adage hardly applied.

Eventually, Len shook her head. "I can't think of anything," she said frankly. "I think it might be that woman you told me about, though."

"Luisa Aldaran?"

"Yes. Didn't you say she has laran?"

Leonie's face cleared. "But of course. You must think me very foolish, Len!" Mentally, she continued, she is Comyn, so she has laran... and Valerie has hair like Flavia's- copper red. Could it be that Luisa-Louella believes that all red-heads here have laran powers?

"Maybe she does," Len said in response to the unspoken thought. She herself still found it difficult to respond deliberately from the mind to such a contact; she was still inexperienced enough to need a matrix, and in any case, lacked Leonie's Hastur Gift.

"What would she do to Val?" Len asked, rather fearfully. It was still early, she thought hopefully. Not quite sixteen hours. Perhaps Val would turn up before Abendessen...

-Not if Luisa has taken her for her own purposes, Leonie thought soberly in response. And I do not know what she would do. Or rather, I may know. Yet Valerie has no usuable laran as far as I have seen, and that will be her greatest safeguard.

-You mean like because if she had a matrix, for example, taking it away from her wouldn't hurt her because she wouldn't be keyed into to it?

-Exactly. Well done, Len! You have responded mentally without using your matrix!

Len flushed in response to the unexpected praise, for after that first introductory session, Leonie had trained Len as a Keeper trains her newest recruit, and the lessons had not always been easy, or the praise frequent. Yet at the same time this soujourn away from Arilinn and from handling the energon rings every day was having it's own effect on Leonie, and the humanity she had tried so long and so painfully to suppress in the years since she had been made Keeper was beginning to reassert itself, a little, and Leonie was coming to realise that this was not wrong- thus bringing herself closer to the idealogy of the Forbidden Tower than even she liked to admit.

-Should we tell Auntie Hilda? Len wanted to know.

-I do not know. I would rather not tell her, because she would want to know why we suspect this, and I cannot think how to tell her.

-You'll have to tell her something eventually! Len declared mentally. No-one's ever been able to hide anything from her indefinitely!

-Which proves that she does have laran. Tell me, Len, have you tried to touch her mind since we began training?

-No! You said it wasn't right!

Leonie sighed.

-I did not mean that you should enter her mind against her will. Yet you have laran, and so, I think, has she. You are close, I believe, and if you can touch her mind without her fearing or withdrawing from you, we could use it...

Len looked at the elder woman askance.

"I see," she said aloud. "I don't know. I'll have to try sometime."

Leonie nodded. "That is all I ask, child. Now I suppose you had better return to your friends!"

"Con is my triplet," Len reminded her. "And I'll have to think of something to tell her. She's starting to wonder why I'm always disappearing with you when you don't teach me."

"How does she know I do not?" Leonie asked.

Len grinned. "We're triplets. I can't hide anything from her- or from Margot either, when she pays attention."

Leonie looked thoughtful. Triplets. How would that affect laran distribution, she wondered. It was well known on Darkover that in twins one twin had stronger laran than the other, and she acknowledged this to be true in her own case. Her laran was and had always been stronger than Lorill's. And then she thought: or is it only that, as a woman, only I could be Keeper trained and so we all thought my laran was the stronger?

Suddenly she remembered Ellemir Lanart-Alton, twin to Callista. Ellemir had been a part of the battle between the Forbidden Tower and Arilinn, despite the fact that she supposedly had little laran, and more, had been pregnant at the time. In triplets, could two have laran? Or all three? And in what strength?

Len turned to go, and Leonie roused herself from her reverie. Time enough to find out about the triplet-bond later. "One moment, Len. The fact that Luisa has kidnapped Valerie without knowing for certain whether or not she has laran indicates that she may be growing desperate. I think it is now essential that I determine whether and if Flavia has laran. If-" Leonie broke off and stopped.

"You mean, if she's kidnapped, and you've keyed her into a matrix, then we could find her quicker than we can find Val now?" Len suggested.

Leonie nodded, her face shadowed. "Exactly so. Although, I think I must also teach both her, and you, how to shield your matrices when you are working with them. That needs stronger defences than your own telepathic shields, and it is crucial. A matrix user can normally trace any other known matrix user.." Leonie's voice trailed off, and Len nodded in understanding and departed, her own face as grave as Leonie's had been.


	8. Chapter 8

Len, as instructed, watched carefully for an opportunity to speak to Copper. She did not want to simply drop on the girl and carry her off for a chat. Copper, Len hazarded, must be feeling rather uncomfortable herself at the moment. The prefect knew that Miss Annersley had told the girl as much she herself knew about the danger in which Flavia stood, and Len believed that Flavia was quick enough to realise that Val's disappearance could potentially have some connection with her situation.

This possibility increased by the time that three days had passed, and still there was no word or sign from Val. Both Staff and Prefects became anxious, and Miss Annersley looked increasingly drawn from the strain and anxiety. Mrs Gardiner had also been told and- as might have been expected- had taken the news badly.

Len, thinking deeply about Val and Leonie and her own scholarship work managed to leave most of her Literature notes in the library yet again and consequently found herself unable to work. With a muttered exclamation, she closed the cupboard door in the Prefect's Room and made for the door.

"Where are you off too now?" Margot Maynard demanded.

Like Con, Len's constant disappearances had not escaped her notice, and Len looked about her in a hunted fashion. Her sisters were becoming a nuisance. It was perfectly plain that she must tell them both something, at some stage- but how, and when, without breaking confidence?

Then again, Len thought rather gloomily as she explained about the notes, it was quite likely that they both had laran anyway and so were just being tactful. Or, with a private grin as she left the room at last, maybe not. Tact was not, and never had been, Margot's strong suit.

Poor Con had always been labelled the tactless one, but the triplets themselves knew that with her it was not tactlessness- simply a habit of occasionally blurting out her thoughts. As Len had pointed out once, Con was no more tactless than anyone else- it was simply that she was quieter than the others, so her lapses were more noticeable.

By this time, Len was approaching the library door, and it was ajar. Through it, voices could be heard, and Len's eyebrows rose. Silence in the library was strictly observed, and it was highly unlikely that Fifth or Sixth Formers would abuse their privilege of working there in this fashion. The prefect was just about to enter in a blaze of righteous indignation, when she finally realised what the conversation was about. Len slowed down, just a little, to confirm her own suspicions before making her move.

"-asked Peter, do you think?" asked a voice that Len recognised as being Copper's.

"Well, we've settled that," Len heard Jack Lambert declare, a propos of nothing as far as the prefect was concerned. "You snap out of this mad idea that you're to blame!" Jack carried on, and Len gave a grin of satisfaction. This was the opening she had been waiting for.

As soon as Jack had finished saying, "..what about going and finding someone to give them our latest?" Len opened the door wider, looking her most prefectorial, and spoke as coldly as she could.

"And what, may I ask, do you two think you're doing here at this hour?"

The two Middles turned guiltily, and Len continued. "I thought this was prep for you? And why are you in the Junior Library? You can't," she went on sternly, "have come to look up something. The reference books are right at the other end of the place."

Before so very long, Len knew exactly what Jack and Copper had been discussing- namely, the fact that Val had been in the habit of slipping off to visit her elder brother Peter in the San when things got on top of her- and she realised that the girls had hit on a possible solution to one of the things that had puzzled Len and Leonie.

For all Len knew, it probably concerned the Head and the rest of the Staff, and she knew they would eventually turn their attention to that aspect of the matter, but Len also knew that the Head's main worry at this point in time was to get Val back as soon as possible, and preferably unharmed. Leonie, without that responsibility, but with one of her own, had also wondered if she was underestimating Luisa Aldaran, and that possibility worried her very much. This news would be a relief to her too.

In the meantime, the first person to tell was unquestionably Miss Annersley, so Len led Copper and Jack to the Study, only to find that room deserted. To Len's dismay, Miss Dene was also out, but a flash of laran told her where Miss Annersley most probably was.

Therefore, with a coolness that left both Jack and Copper bereft of breath, Len marched back into the Study and up to the phone that was a private line between the School and Freudesheim. Before long she had finished explaining to her mother, and Mrs Maynard promptly promised to escort the Head back to School immediately.

"Is she coming?" Jack demanded restlessly when Len finally hung up.

"Miss Annersley is at home, and Mamma is bringing her over now," the prefect told her firmly. "Now, Copper, d'you want Jack to stay or will we throw her out?" A grin tacked onto the end of her question removed any sting, and Jack grinned back at her favourite Sixth Former.

"If she wants to stay, I don't mind," Copper told Len with equal firmness, and Len nodded in response. Jack's presence could complicate Len's own plans for getting Flavia by herself, but after the role Jack had played in helping Copper clarify her thoughts, Len did not want to be the one to throw her out.

"If Auntie Hilda doesn't want her, she'll say so!" she concluded at last, just as she heard the Head and her mother enter by the French window in the salon.

"Here they are!" Len hissed to the other girls. "Keep calm and don't try to say everything at once!"

"Well, here we are!" was Joey's characteristically breezy greeting as she followed her friend into the room. "What was so important you wanted us at once, Len?"

Len turned from her mother to the Head, and noted with compassion the dark circles under the older woman's eyes.

-It will be OK, Auntie Hilda, she telegraphed mentally.

Miss Annersley, apparently not noticing that the girl had not spoken, smiled at her. Neither realised that Copper was looking at Len with a puzzled expression in her eyes, but by then Jack had taken the initiative and had launched into the tale of their deductions, with Copper chipping in occasionally.

"Well, that's certainly helpful," Joey announced when Jack had finished. "At least we know how they got hold of her. I don't mind telling you, Hilda, that that was something both Jack and I wondered about. However, I have to admit, I'm afraid, that I really don't see how it helps us to find Val and bring her back." She spoke gently as she ended the sentence, noting how the faces of both Jack and Copper fell.

Miss Annersley sighed. "No; I'm afraid you're right there, but as Mrs Maynard says, you've certainly given us a possible solution to one aspect of the matter. Well done! And now, Jack, I think you'd better go back to prep. I want to have a quick word with Flavia and then I'll send her after you. Off you go!"

With no choice but no obey, Jack hurriedly executed her version of a curtsey and vanished with a quick glance to Flavia that made Len suppress a grin. It was perfectly obvious that Jack meant to get Flavia alone later and get the rest of the story from her, and as Len met the amused look in her mother's eyes, she knew that Joey knew it too.

-Leonie said Mamma has laran, Len mused, but she had no further time to think, for Miss Annersley was speaking to Copper.

"We can't know yet how they finally did it," she said. "I know you have been forbidden to speak to strangers, Flavia. Now I forbid you speaking to anyone not belonging to the school. You understand?"

"Yes," Copper said, her voice only just remaining steady.

"Then run along upstairs and change for the evening, both of you. Prep, Flavia? Do what you can at evening prep and anything you can't do shall be excused for once."

Flavia scuttled on the word, but Len opened her mouth to speak. She caught a look in the Head's eye- not to speak of her own mother's grimaces behind that lady- and shut her mouth again with an audible click. Seeing no help for it, Len dropped her regulation curtsy and left the room, only just overhearing Miss Annersley's heartfelt: "Thank God for so slight a clue! Joey, ring up Jack and-"

The Head's voice faded into the distance as Len blocked the scene in the study from her mind, and concentrated instead on snaffling Copper before that young lady could disappear up the stairs.

-Hang on a minute, Copper! Len thought urgently towards the younger girl, as much to test her as anything else.

Flavia, up ahead, stopped dead and turned round to face Len who had come up behind her.

"Did you call me?" she asked.

"Sort of," was the laconic reply. "What did you hear?"

Copper eyed Len as if she thought that the prefect had gone ever so slightly off her rocker. "I just heard you say 'hang on a minute'. What else would you have said?"

Len looked at the grey green eyes that were level with her shoulder.

"Think carefully," she said softly. "What did you hear?"

Still puzzled, Copper stood and thought for a moment. Len, watching her, could have told even without laran when realisation dawned, for the Fourth Former's clear skin suddenly drained of colour, and Len reached out a supporting arm.

"It's OK," she said reassuringly. "You're not mad, and neither am I. Come and sit down for a minute."

"You didn't say anything, did you?" Copper whispered.

"Not aloud. I-I called to your mind," Len confessed.

Copper jumped up. "You're making that up!"

"I'm not, I swear," Len promised, despite the fact that in normal circumstances a Middle would be rebuked sharply for speaking with such rudeness to a prefect. But this, as Len well knew, was not a normal circumstance. "What did you think I said?" she persisted now.

Copper bit her lip. "Y-you didn't say anything," she said defiantly. "I-I heard you coming down the corridor, that's all."

"Then how did you know I'd told you to 'hang on a minute'?"

Realising she had defeated her own argument, Copper looked frantically about her for escape. It was given to her in the shape and sound of the bell, and she left Len without a word or backward glance.

Len stared after her, feeling a failure.

-I have failed, Leonie, she thought. You trusted me to handle this and I have failed! Now Copper will never be tested for laran, or accept it if she has it.

-Oh, she has it, returned the Keeper's mental voice. I can hear her outrage, and so I am sure, can any other telepath in the building or nearby.

-Poor Mamma and Auntie Hilda then! Len returned, attempting a weak joke.

-They will sense it but not know the cause, Leonie returned seriously. In the meantime, we must find a way to accustom Flavia to mental contact.

-But how? demanded Len despairingly.

-I do not know, but the chance will come.

Leonie broke the contact at that point, and Len made her way back to the prefect's room so obviously wrapped deep in her own private world that not even her sisters dared to question her.


	9. Chapter 9

The next few days continued to be anxious ones, with no sign of Val's return. The Staff became increasingly short-tempered and irritable, much to the annoyance of their younger charges. The prefects tried to help by taking hold, which led to various arguments across the school as junior middles resented the undue interference.

Upper IVa were unwontedly quiet, and Margot Maynard was heard to declare that if it had not been for Val's disappearance, she would be worried lest the form as a whole had been up to something particularly bad- a pronouncement that earned her a filthy look from her eldest sister, but as Margot knew that Len was especially close to Upper IVa, she thought no more about it.

Which was just as well, really, thought Con Maynard, who had watched the whole thing and had wondered for a moment whether Len would lose her normally well-controlled hot temper, and thus trigger an explosion from the more volatile Margot.

By the time that six days had elapsed since Val had vanished, nerves throughout the school as a whole were severely strained. Leonie and Len had tried to distract themselves by thinking of ways to get through to Copper, but as they were very anxious themselves, their attempts were more or less unsucessful, and Copper, as Len had observed to Leonie gloomily, looked like the cares of the world were on her shoulders. Leonie had smiled and made no response, for what was there to say?

Finally, on the sixth day, the news they had all been waiting for came. Val was returned. It so happened that Miss Annersley was teaching and so was out of the office; Len was in the library, working, and Leonie had gone into the office to consult Miss Dene about some records for Upper IVa.

The exchange had been uncomfortable. Rosalie, although polite, could not conceal her discomfort and dislike of Leonie, and Leonie, for her part, became very dignified and grand and managed to make the school secretary feel like a gawky girl.

Since Rosalie was well into her thirties by this time and in addition had been a professional for many years, this did nothing to further endear Leonie to her, so their conversations tended to be icily polite. Perhaps fortunately for both, there was little reason for them to encounter each other frequently.

"Thank you, Miss Dene. You are very kind," Leonie finished in her precise speech.

"No trouble, Miss Hastur," Rosalie returned with a forced smile. "It's my job, after all! And now-" She raised her eyebrows at the older woman, who nodded and turned towards the door. At that point, the gong that acted as a glorified doorbell sounded, and Rosalie's eyebrows remained fixed in place.

"I wonder who that could be?" she muttered as she rose herself.

Leonie looked at her with a flash of precognition. "I think it is something to do with Valerie," she said.

"Perhaps," Rosalie returned frostily. "I hope so, I'm sure! We can't take much more of this. In the meantime I'd better go and find out, as Miggi is on her afternoon off."

Leonie, with that feeling of foreknowledge lying heavily upon her, ignored the politely veiled hostility, and followed the secretary into the front hall, where she witnessed that lady swing wide the front door.

A man stood there, holding a red-headed girl in his arms.

"Valerie!" exclaimed Rosalie, her gladness ringing in her tones.

The man smiled, and Leonie, watching from the shadows, tensed.

"Are you the headmistress of this school, madam?" she heard him ask.

"No, no, the secretary. Please come in, do. I'll take you into the study." Rosalie turned back towards Leonie as she ushered the man and his charge into the study, and hissed, "Go and find Hilda, for goodness' sake!" before shutting the door.

Leonie stood for a moment in deep thought before she did as she was asked.

She found Miss Annersley lecturing to the Sixth on 'Women in literature', and, to her delight, Len Maynard was also there in the audience.

-Val? Len telegraphed to her, being careful not to meet Leonie's eyes.

"Miss Annersley, Miss Dene would like you to go the study," Leonie said aloud, and Len dropped her face so that no-one should see her relieved smile.

Miss Annersley looked at the new mistress and managed to smile politely at her pupils. "Very well, Miss Hastur. I'll come right away. Girls, please consider what I have said. For next week, I want you to write about the different representations of women in 'Pride and Prejudice.' That is all." With a final smile, she left the library to join Leonie.

"Is it Valerie?" she asked breathlessly as soon as the door closed behind her.

Leonie nodded, and Hilda Annersley gave a long sigh of relief.

"Thank God! I was getting badly afraid. Is she-?"

"She appears to be uninjured," Leonie replied softly, carefully shielding the thought that was worrying her. Val certainly had appeared in one piece, physically, but what if her mind had been tampered with? Drugs were not the only worry, Leonie knew, but she kept this thought to herself. The Head had had a bad week. No sense at burdening her further at this point, so Leonie only smiled.

"Thank you, Leonie," the Head told her with a slight catch in her voice. "I think I'll go on, now," and, throwing dignity to the winds, she nodded to Leonie and ran lightly off in the direction of the study.

-Is she gone? Len asked.

-She is. Can you come to me, Len?

A moment later, Len appeared herself, and Leonie smiled.

"She's back, isn't she?" Len asked.

"She is."

"Is she OK?"

"She is well- physically." Leonie hesitated and then continued. Len had been training long enough to understand the issues; only the week before she had taken the Monitor's Oath. "I think she has been drugged, but I do not know enough of that to tell. However, I am more worried about why Luisa has released her. Did she not realise that she could hold Valerie as hostage in exchange for Flavia- or anyone else?"

Len's eyes grew wide as she realised the implications of this. "You mean- Valerie has been returned to us deliberately? As-as a trap?"

Leonie looked grave. "I do not know. Surely Luisa does not know how to create and implant a trap matrix- but if she does?" Leonie's voice trailed off and she contemplated the possible repercussions of that.

However, she did not get a chance to say more, for they had walked towards the front hall, and saw Dr Maynard steadying Miss Annersley as they came down the stairs. Len heard him say something about knowing Barr, and turned curious, yet uncertain, eyes on Leonie.

"If it's a trap, if we're right, that means he's involved somehow. But that can't be right, Leonie! He knows Papa- he must be OK!"

Leonie looked uncertain in her own turn. Things were developing in a highly unexpected manner, and she did not immediately know what to do. If Barr was involved, that would mean he had Darkovan connections somehow. And here, on Terra, she could not call him with the authority of the Lady of Arilinn- although that could be a good thing.

If Luisa Aldaran and her co-horts were planning to spring some kind of trap matrix on the Chalet School, the fact that they did not know that one of Darkover's most powerful telepaths was resident there could prove to be their undoing, and the School's salvation.

"Isn't there any way you can find out?" Len implored, her eyes anxious.

Leonie hesitated. "Apart from forced rapport, no. You see," she went on as Len began to protest, "like you, I have taken an oath never to enter another's mind without their knowledge and consent. Further, if this man is connected to the Aldarans, he may or may not have laran himself. He would sense any attempt at rapport we made."

"And the matrix?" Len asked, breathless.

Again, Leonie hesitated. "If a trap matrix had been set on one of the people in the Study, then, indeed, we could know what passes. But there is none, and it is too late to set one now."

Len whitened as she understood the meaning of a trap matrix for the first time. "You mean, if Val has had a trap matrix set on her, then Luisa could be watching every we do?"

Leonie nodded. "Yes, but within certain limits. As far as I can tell, Valerie has little laran. Therefore, she would not be as useful as Luisa may have hoped- but if Flavia is still their first priority, then certainly Luisa may gain enough information to know beyond all doubt that we do indeed have Flavia at the School."

"Then you must do something," Len urged. "Can't you make an excuse and join them?"

"Len, I am just a junior mistress here! I cannot do that uninvited, as you know very well!"

"That's true." Len managed to grin, and Leonie watched her closely.

"What I could do," Miss Hastur suggested after a moment's silence, "is to stand nearby when Miss Annersley or Miss Dene show Mr Barr out."

"That won't be long," Len pointed out. "Probably in the next twenty minutes or so. If I know Papa, he'll want Auntie Hilda to be quiet for a while after all the strain- they always do- and she can't relax with a visitor. If the Head doesn't ditch him, Papa will find an excuse to."

Leonie nodded, and looked at the girl beside her. "I think you are right. In the meantime, you should probably return to your work. I can think of an excuse for being here; it would be more difficult for you."

Reluctantly, Len agreed, and departed on her own occasions, leaving Leonie standing in the shadows of the front hall, from whence she could best keep an eye on the comings and goings between the Study and the front door. Before long, the Study door opened, and Miss Annersley and Dr Maynard appeared, escorting the visitor to the door, and Leonie jerked to attention as a wave of thought reached her from Barr's direction.

-It worked! And thanks to old Maynard being so trusting, I've got definite confirmation that Flavia Letton is here. That newspaper article was very clever; I wonder how Louella managed to convince the police of both her death and mine. We've got the police beautifully confused..

At that point, the man's barriers slammed down, and Leonie lost the train of thought. Undaunted, she watched him carefully as he smiled politely and made his farewells, and then, gently, she reached out and softly made a contact that was so gentle that it would have gone almost unnoticed by a telepath more powerful than Barr.

As it was, he was conscious of a vague discomfort, but not enough to bear further consideration. The truth was that Luisa Aldaran had passed information to Barr on a strictly 'need to know' basis, and his obsessive desire to improve his own skills and became a signifcant force in Empire politics had led him to her.

Deeply in rapport, Leonie did not noticed Miss Annersley returning to her Study; nor did she observe the curious look Dr Maynard shot at her as he turned from his old friend. Her first indication that she was not alone came when Dr Maynard's deep voice broke through her reverie.

"Miss Hastur, isn't it? Are you alright?"

"I beg your pardon?" Leonie gasped, a little stunned from the sudden severance of the contact.

"Not going to faint, are you?" Jack asked amiably. "If so, I'm going to speak to Matron and suggest she give you all more red meat. First Hilda and now you!"

Leonie tried to smile politely, and lowered her eyes so that she was no longer looking into the kind face before her. She was not accustomed to a man looking straight at her; on Darkover, no man would look directly into the eyes of a Comyn woman, and that was even more true of a Keeper.

And Leonie realised that despite Jack's unquestioned devotion to his wife and family, the eyes that were on her now were admiring. The thought warmed her, and she attempted to control her instinctive withdrawal. How long had it been since any man had looked on with admiration, or any emotion apart from ingrained and conditioned awe and deference?

"No, I'm not going to faint," she returned after a measurable pause.

"Yes, you look better," Jack told her with another grin. Mentally, he was wondering about her. He had not failed to notice that air of dignity and authority that Leonie normally possessed- or her discomfort at his teasing.

More than that, he was curious. Len had dropped a comment now and then about a new technique she had learned 'for first aid' she had said, evasively. Intrigued, Jack had pressed her further, and had been startled when his normally frank eldest daughter had politely but firmly refused to say more- 'for the present'. At that moment, Jack had acknowledged that Len, at least, was no longer a child, and from then on he had found himself speaking to her as he would to a grown woman.

But now, there was nothing for it but to nod at Leonie and depart, whilst also questioning whether Hilda Annersley could be persuaded to give a little more information about this Miss Hastur. As soon as the thought came into his mind, he banished it. Such a proceeding would be both unprofessional and unethical, and Jack did not want to create any uneasiness in the relationship that existed between the School and Freudesheim.

For her part, Leonie was relieved to see him go. It had not been true, she thought sadly, that she had never been loved. Damon Ridenow had loved her- and her only response had been to send him away from the Tower and the life he had obviously been born for, rather than risk her own emotions or her power.

It had taken years for Damon to take up his laran work again, Leonie knew- and then it had been to oppose Arilinn and all it stood for. Well, at least now she knew that his assumptions and ideas were not wrong, were indeed right, and she would act on them when she finally returned home.

She had told Damon and Callista that she would not stand in their way and that they had won the right to establish their Tower, but the very fact that all Darkover knew of that Tower as the 'Forbidden Tower' said a good deal for the real thoughts and feelings of the Lady of Arilinn. That would have to change. In the meantime, there was work to do here.


	10. Chapter 10

The following afternoon a staff meeting was called.

"Stick all the tables together and shove the chairs round them," Nancy Wilmot ordered as various mistresses sat idly, looking, as she told them, as if they expected this to be a coffee-and-gossip session.

"That sounds very official, Nance!" Kathie Ferrars grinned. "What do you know that we don't?"

"I took the message, remember," her friend returned as she skidded a table across the floor with small regard for the carpet. "Hilda didn't sound unofficial, I promise you!"

"Probably just half term arrangements," Sharlie Andrews chipped in as she helped Ruth Derwent move the big chair used by Miss Annersley on these occasions to the head of the newly formed long table.

"Could be. Myself, I think it's more about school security after the disappearance of young Val."

"That would be a good idea," Leonie said, and they turned to look at her.

She was in an ambiguous position; she was one of the older members, and yet at the same time she was the most junior mistress. Therefore, she did not fit in with either the long established mistresses who were her contemporaries, or with those who were nearer to her in the staff room hierarchy. As a result, she tended to remain silent, and her comment now attracted more attention than she had meant it to.

"I'm sure we did all we could!" Rosalie Dene put in, rather sharply for her, and Nancy regarded the school secretary with startled eyes.

"We did, and Leonie didn't mean it that way," Ruth put in smoothly, anxious to avoid a contretemps when the Head was expected at any moment. Not, she reflected, that she could see Leonie Hastur engaged in any kind of scrap, but the normally placid Rosalie was evidently on edge.

"Personally, I think that a discussion on security would be a very good idea. I do not want to repeat the experience of last week, and I'm sure the rest of you don't! In fact," the Senior English mistress continued energetically, "if Hilda doesn't bring it up, I think I will!"

"You needn't worry, Ruth," the Head said from the doorway. "You are correct. I do wish us to think about improving our arrangements, especially in the light of the upcoming Half Term."

"I thought you might cancel it," mentioned Linda Stone, one of the youngest in the Staff Room.

"And have a revolution? No thanks!" Nancy grinned.

Hilda Annersley smiled, and they all relaxed. It had been a long time since the Head had been seen to smile, and her tensity had communicated itself to the rest of them.

"I doubt the girls would do anything so violent, Nancy. Besides, we have had Half Terms at school before, as you well know!"

"Only last term," Nancy agreed placidly.

"Mrs Jarley," Rosalind Yolland was heard to murmur quietly to herself, and a general grin went round- except for Leonie, who naturally did not understand the allusion.

"Well, there won't be any Mrs Jarley this term," the Head told them briskly, with a quick twinkle at Rosalind, who was an Old Girl. "Regardless of the situation with Flavia, we are going to have our normal expeditions. In fact, it would be very difficult to do otherwise, as the school at large is unaware of the Flavia issue."

"They might think that you don't want any more kidnappings and leave it at that," Rosalind Moore chipped in.

"They might, and I don't- heaven forbid!- but I think that we've already had too much attention drawn to us. If we cancel Half Term, the girls would chatter, and they might be overheard. A change of plan like that would confirm beyond all reasonable doubt that we do indeed have Flavia Letton here."

-That has already been confirmed, Leonie thought drily. But she was careful to shield the thought.

"Will Flavia go on a trip?" Kathie Ferrars demanded.

The Head's brow creased a little. "I haven't decided," she admitted. "Naturally, I would prefer that she go- if only because I understand that once all this is resolved, her father may choose to withdraw her- and I'd like her to have the opportunity to see something of Switzerland. On the other hand-" She paused, and the Staff nodded in understanding. After the escapade with Val, there was no further need to elaborate.

"I think she should go," Leonie said suddenly, as a flash of precognition came to her.

Rosalie sniffed, but Miss Annersley looked at the other woman questioningly.

"Do you believe she would be more vulnerable here?"

"I'm not sure, Miss Annersley. But I do think that she would be in greater danger here, at school- especially if the building is virtually empty- than she would be on a well-supervised trip."

Hilda nodded thoughtfully. This was a valid point. All the same- the Head shook herself mentally. She was becoming paranoid. For all they knew, the gang had decided after their abortive attempt to kidnap Flavia that the girl was not, after all, at the Chalet School. Perhaps they had moved on.

"I see. Well, I'll think about it. Like I say, I'd prefer that she go, but as several people have to stay in any case because of San contacts, it may be possible to make arrangements with Jo."

"Couldn't she take any stragglers?" Nancy suggested, leaning her chin on her clasped hands.

"I'm sure she would if I asked it, but don't you think she has enough on at the moment, Nancy? If she suggests it herself, I won't say no, but I don't want to initiate the idea."

"So that means that some of us need to stay here," Rosalind Moore observed, and her Headmistress nodded at her.

"Exactly. Therefore, since we appear to have started this meeting on this point, we may as well continue. Rosalie, will you read out the duty lists, please."

With a smile towards her superior, Rosalie nodded and fished out the requisite list. "OK. Nancy and Kathie, the Middles will have to do without you for once. You're both off this Half Term. You too, Jeanne. The rest of you, I'm sad to say, will be on various trips as usual and I'll pin the lists up on the notice-board. Oh, and Hilda, Gwynneth, Leonie and I will stay here. That suit?"

Everyone agreed it did, and Leonie looked carefully at the Head to find that lady watching her. As their eyes met, Hilda smiled, and Leonie knew that the other woman had remembered their conversation at the very beginning of term, and had decided to keep Leonie at school on the off chance that Flavia, too, would stay.

After that, the meeting moved on to discuss security measures, but no-one could agree on any one set of ideas. Some people argued that tightening the rules would make everything uncomfortable, whereas others insisted that there should be greater control over the movement across school grounds made by those individuals who were not, strictly speaking, part of the school community.

This thought, too, was quashed when Rosalie observed, rather sarcastically for her, that if they followed that plan, she would not be the one to explain to Joey Maynard. After that, the meeting rather lapsed, and was closed in short order.

As it happened, a telegram arrived from Inspector Letton on the Wednesday afternoon before Half Term, and that settled the question of Flavia, at any rate. Miss Annersley then sent for Len and Leonie, having noted that the two had become close, and knowing that, in their own ways, each was concerned about the whole Flavia situation.

"Flavia will stay at school," the Head began, rather abruptly, once the prefect and junior mistress were comfortably settled.

"Oh, poor Copper! That's hard lines on her," Len exclaimed.

Miss Annersley smiled at her. "Flavia knows, Len. I don't think you need worry. I told her that her father- step-father, rather- is coming for the day and she was so delighted at the prospect of seeing him that I don't think she regrets the trip."

"All the same, she'll miss the rest of her gang," Len declared. She thought for a moment, and then met her brevet-aunt's eyes. "Actually, Auntie Hilda, would-would it be possible for me to stay too? I've been on our trip before."

Leonie glanced quickly at Len and the girl nodded, almost imperceptibly. Miss Annersley, who had observed the whole exchange, sat back in her chair and looked at them thoughtfully.

"I don't see why you shouldn't, Len," the Head began slowly. "As you say, you've been before, and, as you live here, you can go again. But why should you wish to? I think," she continued swiftly, "that there is more going on here than I know of. Am I correct?"

Len looked acutely uncomfortable, and the Head suppressed a smile.

"Well?" she said, her tone reminding Len of sundry encounters in her Middles days.

"I just thought that if I stayed here, Copper and I could spend time at home with the babies and all," Len managed at last.

Miss Annersley nodded. "As it happens, your mother has offered to have all of the stragglers over during the day, and I'm sure she'd be glad of your help. But that still doesn't answer my question! Why do you feel this responsibility towards Copper?"

Len shrugged. "'Cos I've known all along, I suppose," she said, sounding younger than her eighteen years. It was deliberate; she wanted to disarm her brevet aunt and avoid more questions. If Auntie Hilda continued, Len knew she'd end up spilling the beans.

Miss Annersley looked at her keenly. She knew the girl very well- perhaps better than Len herself quite realised, and she knew it was unusual for Len to withold personal information in this way.

Then she looked at Leonie, who was sitting, silent and impassive. Hilda Annersley suppressed another smile. How many times had she herself sat, in just that manner, in the staffroom or whilst listening to the girls chatter amongst themselves? It was, Hilda knew, an invaluable way of gaining information. Which begged the question. What did Leonie want to know, or already know?

"Do you think something will happen this weekend?" Hilda asked Leonie, remembering the latter's comments at staff meeting.

Leonie looked grave. "I think it will, Hilda. I would urge you again- send Flavia away."

"Does it matter so much?" the Head asked curiously, and Leonie smiled rather oddly.

"I am not sure. Perhaps you are right and it does not."

She had to repress a shudder as she remembered that a trap matrix had almost certainly been set on Val Gardiner- and Flavia was in the same form! No. Hilda Annersley was right- Flavia would be better off well away from Val- at least until Leonie managed to think how to disarm the trap matrix- supposing she could. They were notoriously difficult to defeat, given their nature.

Miss Annersley sighed. "I'm not getting very far, am I? I'll simply take it as read that there could be difficulties this weekend and behave accordingly."

"Make sure you are never out of reach of help," Leonie said, rather suddenly.

The Head looked startled, and laughed a little. "Leonie! Do you really think someone would walk in off the street, as it were, and attack me?"

"There is more than one way to be attacked," Leonie told her soberly. "You are expecting Inspector Letton, aren't you? What time should he arrive?"

"Tomorrow at noon," the Head replied after checking her timetable for this week.

Leonie nodded. "Very well, I will be in the office with Rosalie. Len, I want you here too."

To Hilda's surprise, Len nodded, looking as grave as the junior mistress.

"What about Flavia?" she asked.

Leonie frowned. "If she stays- as I think she will- keep her with you at all times, Len. It wouldn't hurt to do some work with her, just to prepare her-" She broke off.

"Half Term is a holiday here," Miss Annersley interrupted at that point, a hint of steel in her lovely voice. "Len knows this well, even if you don't, Miss Hastur. May I enquire why Len and Flavia should be working together in any case?"

Leonie sighed, and in unprecedented gesture, she leaned across the table to brush Hilda's hand with her fingertips. "I will tell you, I promise," she said, holding the other woman's eyes with hers. "I dare not tell you more now, for I could be wrong, but- if I am not, too much knowledge could endanger you."

"But Len knows, and she's a child!" the Head protested.

Len looked indignant, but Leonie continued almost as if she was not there. "Len is only a girl. They have no reason to target her at the moment. You, on the other hand, are in the front line. You have a saying here, I believe: knowledge is power. That is true, but it can also be dangerous."

"Because of the kidnappers," the Head repeated, not at all satisfied.

Leonie hesitated, but then said, "Yes, if you like."

"Very well," Miss Annersley said again. "I see you will say no more, Leonie Hastur. I will trust you- trust you both, for I can see for myself than Len is as deeply involved in this as you are. I ask you one thing: do nothing to endanger her."

"If anything happens to me, it won't matter anymore," Len told her softly- if cryptically. Then she dropped the regulation curtsy- only it was deeper, and more formal, than normal- and quietly left the room without seeking permission.

"I will do my best," Leonie promised. She rose in her turn, and, for the first time, smiled. "You are a brave woman, Hilda Annersley." She lifted her hands in a curious movement, and bowed before leaving the room in her turn.

It was only that evening, whilst researching Ancient Egypt for the purpose of teaching the story of Joseph, that Hilda saw a tomb relief depicting an Egyptian lifting his hands in the same motion. There it was one of greeting- but also, perhaps, a blessing? Feeling more perturbed than ever, Hilda put away the book and went to bed, seeking forgetfulness in sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

HALF TERM

Up on the Rosleinalp, Luisa Aldaran handed a sheathed object to her fellow conspirator.

"Be careful with it," she warned anxiously as he moved to lift the silk. "It is very powerful, and it could destroy you rather than those you wish it to."

Hastily, the man recovered the object. "But will I be able to use it properly, Lou- Lady Luisa?"

Luisa lifted one beautifully shaped eyebrow and her green eyes glinted. "Because you have no usable laran, you mean?" Her voice was scornful, and the man glared at her.

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. "Because I have none!" He turned his back on her and sat down, and she watched him with an amused, yet, faintly malicious smile. She moved towards him and trailed her fingers across his shoulders.

"But you will have," she coaxed, her tones silken. "And later, something more. When we have won, here and on Darkover, I will send you to the best Towers in the Domains." Her eyes glittered again, and he shivered. In this mood she looked positively feral. "I will send you to Arilinn, and force the Hastur bitch there to give you all her knowledge. There, you will learn to use your laran- such as it is!"

"But you told me that Arilinn was protected by a trap matrix, the Veil of Arilinn, which will only allow those of Comyn blood to enter?"

"So I did. I am pleased you have listened. But I will tell you a secret: their Veil is less than they think, just as laran is not purely a Comyn gift. They are only now learning in the Domains what we of Aldaran have known for generations! If you believe you can pass through it, then the belief will become reality. Just as," she continued softly, "if you believe that you have laran, and open your mind to it, you will have it."

"So what are we doing here, then?" he complained. "Shouldn't we be on the first starship back to Cott- Darkover?"

Luisa removed her hand so quickly that her nails raked across his neck, and he winced.

"Fool!" she hissed. "We need that girl Flavia and you know why! I have told you, and told you! And to convince the Empire authorities to trust us, we need lots of telepaths- or potential telepaths- to give them for their experiments and investigations, so that they do not pay attention to what we do."

"But I thought you said-" he began, and Luisa moved her hand abruptly.

"Enough!" she said fiercely, and then almost laughed as she saw that he had, quite literally, frozen. The command voice was a dangerous heritage, but Luisa had learned, and learned well, how to use it. Only she used it with caution, for even an Aldaran knew of Darkovan ethics about the overuse of such a potentially powerful Gift.

"You must go now," she told him conversationally, but firmly, "and do what we have talked of. But it must be done quickly! There is no time to lose. Inspector Letton is due at noon. We must have accomplished our task before then!"

Jerking out of the trance into which he had fallen, he rose and obeyed.

Luisa sat and watched him go, and then bared her own matrix.

"Now it begins," she said, quietly and triumphantly.

At the school, Rosalie Dene was sorting through correspondence as quickly as she could. She wanted to finish by Break time as she had planned to have coffee with Joey Maynard that morning, but she sighed as she realised that the coffee might well have to wait. There were a number of letters here that absolutely had to be sorted immediately.

"Good morning, Rosalie. Could I help you?"

Rosalie turned at the sound of Leonie Hastur's precise voice, and stared. The older woman usually wore suits, or skirts and cardigans as they all did. Her outfit today, however, was considerably different.

She wore a crimson dress cut in almost the style of a medieval tabard, although the hem was the best part of ten inches off the floor. A simple stitched fabric belt defined Leonie's waist, and her hair was bound in a big knot at the nape of her neck. The butterfly clip she was using was finely carved wood, rather than her usual copper. Over one arm she held what looked like a silky shawl of the same crimson as her dress- and Rosalie shivered a little as she looked outside. It was only mid-October, but in the Alps that was cool enough, especially when the heating in the school had been cranked down for a couple of days whilst the girls were out. Perhaps a shawl was a good idea.

"Th-thanks," she stammered now, and silently handed Leonie a packet of letters.

"I have to deal with this lot myself now," the secretary explained, indicating the pile on her table, "but if you could sort this lot into forms for me I'd be very grateful."

"You're going out, aren't you," Leonie mentioned casually.

Rosalie smiled and nodded, forgetting her instinctive caution around this particular mistress. "Yes. I'm going to have elevenses with Jo and her small people. I'm really looking forward to it," she finished with a sigh as she cast another glance at the pile of papers beside her.

"It is a holiday," Leonie reminded her gently. "I am sure Hilda would not mind if you left them."

Rosalie laughed, rather ruefully. "She wouldn't. In fact, she had quite a lot to say to me this morning about working at all! But she has to, so-" and she finished with a shrug and turned back to her work. Leonie took the hint and the letters, and they began to work.

The morning went off well enough. All three of the women in the school worked hard, and at half past eleven, Rosalie announced brightly that since they'd done so much, she thought she'd finish for the day and run over to Joey's now. Leonie agreed easily, and, after a call to alert Mrs Maynard to her impending arrival, Miss Dene went off happily.

Ten minutes later, Leonie raised her head as she heard the sound of the great front door open, and that feeling of disquiet flared up again. Thoughtfully, she removed her matrix from its silken pouch in her pocket, and placed it on her finger. After a moment's pause, she lifted the silky fabric beside her and put it on. Rosalie could not have known that it was part of a Keeper's regalia on Darkover, and Leonie, as she felt the familiar weight settle on her shoulders, realised that she was also assuming once again the discipline of a Keeper, readying herself for intense work. It was, she thought, always well to be prepared.


	12. Chapter 12

Meanwhile, Hilda had been startled when Miggi came to announce Inspector Letton's arrival.

"Twenty minutes early," she commented. "Very well, Miggi. You may show him in," and she quickly signed the paper she had been reading before shuffling all her letters together and rising to drop them into the basket. She had resumed her seat when the maid entered.

"The Herr Letton, Madame," and Hilda looked up to smile at the girl and welcome her visitor.

"Mr Barr!" she exclaimed in surprise and held out her hand. "I didn't know you were coming. That will be all, Miggi." With a nod she dismissed the maid, whilst wondering why the man before her had permitted himself to be shown in under another name. "Sit down, do, Mr Barr. Are you here with Inspector Letton?"

Barr smiled slowly. "Not quite, Miss Annersley."

The Head's eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean?"

"Where's Flavia?" he demanded abruptly.

"She's at Freudesheim, with one of our prefects," the Head explained. She began to say more, but, warned by a sudden prescience, refrained from doing so.

"How fortunate!" Barr said, still smiling. The smile vanished. "Get her over here. Now."

"Mr Barr, I'm afraid I really can't-" the Head began.

She was interrupted when he picked up the now unsheathed matrix-gun, and pointed it straight at her.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes. I heard, but- I don't quite understand!" In spite of her attempts to remain calm, Hilda's mind was reeling. Barr was evidently not all he had seemed some weeks before, when he had returned Val-. Valerie!

The Head looked up again, and her eyes had turned to slate. "You didn't return Valerie," she said, her lovely voice harsh for once. "You kidnapped her, didn't you? Because you thought she was Flavia!"

"How clever of you, Miss Annersley," Barr whispered. "Enough talk. I want Flavia, and I want her now!"

"And if I refuse?"

Barr grinned, showing all his teeth. "You're a brave woman, Hilda Annersley." It was, almost word for word, what Leonie had said to her the day before, but there was a world of difference in the meaning.

"I know you won't shoot that," she said, more confidently than she felt. "I believe you're a clever man, Barr, or you wouldn't have deceived us all in the way you did. Shoot that gun- injure me- and you'll never escape."

"You're right," he said softly, much to her surprise. "I won't shoot this. For a very simple reason. It's not a gun." Slowly he turned the 'gun' and showed her the gleaming starstone set into handle.

In the office, Leonie rose as she realised a powerful matrix had been unveiled. At Freudesheim, Len paused mid-sentence as she showed the awed Flavia one of the three doll's houses that the triplets had owned in their infancy.

"What is it?" Flavia asked, uneasy.

Len looked at her. "We're needed," she said abruptly. "Flavia, now you must use your laran!"

The younger girl bit her lip and nodded. The past weeks had been difficult for her, as she had struggled to come to terms with her gift. She had even used it, a couple of times, in an experimental kind of way, but she had refused the training- except the little that Len, as a qualified monitor, was able to give. Len hoped, as she called an excuse to her mother- something about scrapbooks- that it would be enough.


	13. Chapter 13

In the study, the Head was trying not to look at the 'gun.'

"But don't be fooled," Barr was saying. "This could kill you just as efficiently and much more unpleasantly than any gun. However, it could do more."

"What could be 'more' than death?" the Head enquired, almost amused.

He sat back and eyed her. It was a long, searching look, and it took considerable self-control on Hilda's part to prevent herself from flinching.

"Tell me something, Hilda," he began conversationally. "What do you fear most?"

"Not death, certainly! Or not in the way that some do," Hilda returned, glad to have got him off the subject of Flavia. Inspector Letton was due before long. If she could just keep Barr talking-

"I believe you," Barr said, rather surprisingly. "No. You may fear death in the way that any sane person does, but it doesn't terrify you. What does?"

Hilda remained silent.

"I'll tell you, shall I? The eradication of your personality, your mind, your abilities- that frightens you, doesn't it? Does that thought not terrify you, Hilda Annersley?"

"You cannot know that." The Head kept her voice perfectly neutral; even, slightly amused- the same tone that she sometimes used when rebuking Middles. It never failed with the girls. Anger, they could deal with. Being laughed at was unbearable.

"Perhaps. Not that it matters, for you see, this"- he indicated the matrix again- "can do all of that. Or it could kill you. In addition, if it is activated, it will harm every female redhead on the Platz- and in Zurich."

For the first time, the Head whitened. "Zurich? But- that's where-"

"Where Valerie Gardiner and the rest of her little pals are. Exactly."

"How will it harm them?" the Head asked, distracted from wondering how Barr had managed to discover the destination of Upper IVa.

"Together they will form part of a living matrix. Only someone who is keyed into this particular gun- seeming matrix will be able to control or touch them without harm." He paused deliberately before adding, " Such an attempt by any other will be futile- and fatal."

Len and Flavia ran into school through the French window in the Head's salon, despite Flavia's protests. Len had taken the time to glance in through the study window as they passed, and had gathered something of the situation there. It had taken more effort than Len liked to think of to keep going.

"We're here, Leonie!" she gasped as they entered the office.

Leonie turned, and Flavia's eyes widened.

The Keeper crossed the room to them. "We need a circle," she said urgently. "He has a fifth-level matrix in there, and we are only three." She cast a glance to Len, and Len knew what she thought but did not say.

-Only three, and one is untrained!

Flavia flushed, and Len saw that the younger girl had heard the unspoken thought. But there was no time to deal with that now. She removed her own matrix and sat down, carefully distanced from Leonie.

"You must not touch Leonie," Len whispered to Flavia she sat down. "That's why she wears the crimson- to remind us that she is dangerous to touch whilst we work- like an electric current."

Puzzled, Flavia nodded. She had so many questions- and now it was too late to ask them. All she could do was obey.

Leonie was trying, quickly and desperately, to think. There was no relay here. She doubted that a user as inexperienced and untalented as the man in the next room would be able to detect their presence. All the same- that was a powerful matrix, and she had not needed the information given to the Head to understand the implications.

She sat down in her turn and retrieved her own matrix- and it flared into life. A voice Leonie had thought never to hear again spoke to her across the galaxies.

-Leonie! We are here. We know what is happening. You need a circle, and-

-Callista! Leonie returned, too astonished to say more.

Callista Lanart-Carr, once under-Keeper at Arilinn, continued.

-You need a full circle for this work, Kiya, she admonished gently. We will help- Damon and I.

-You cannot do that, Callista!

-We can, Leonie, came the deeper mental voice of Damon Ridenow. I must remind you, you are no longer Callista's Keeper, and this is my decision to take. A Keeper is responsible-

-Only to her- or his- own conscience, Leonie finished, rather dryly. Very well. Len!

-Leonie? Len's mental voice sounded almost shy as she made mental contact with Damon and Callista through the matrix.

-Step out of the circle. You are needed as monitor.

-I will do that, Leonie, Damon told her firmly. Len must stay where she is.

-Flavia!

-I'm here.

Satisfied that this impromptu circle was now complete, Leonie reached out and grasped, as she had so many times before, the energies swirling around her and focused them into a mental rope of silk- soft, flexible, but unbreakable.

The Head turned still paler as her mind grasped the essentials of matrix technology- and she realised, too, that a trap of some kind had been laid on Valerie, and that this was why the girl had been returned.

"Perhaps you are ready now to hand over Flavia?" Barr asked again.

The Head remained silent. She was sitting facing the window and his back was therefore turned away from it. As a result he did not see Len and Flavia pass on their way to the office- but Miss Annersley had, and the anxiety was crippling her.

"So!" he hissed, as she continued to give him no response. "You understand what will happen and yet you do nothing? You will not give up even one? Very well. You have chosen your own destiny, Hilda Annersley!"

He picked up the matrx-gun and the starstone flared into blue flickering life.

At that precise moment, Hilda was almost blinded a sudden mental vision of Len, Flavia, Leonie and two people she did not recognise...Len held out her hand, and Hilda, startled, took it and felt herself somehow absorbed into a circle. Dimly she knew that now, for a very short period of time, she would be safe, whatever happened.

Bolstered now by Hilda, who had her own strength, and by Callista- one of the most powerful telepaths Darkover had ever known- Leonie realised that now she could make a viable attempt to disarm the matrix in the study before it could harm Hilda's physical body. Quickly, she channelled the energies that allowed Calista, who was reasonably skilled at this work, to alter the conformation of the matrix crystal in the gun. It was a delicate task, but, after a seemingly endless time, they all felt the 'click' as the matrix appeared to fall in on itself, its structure gone.

For a moment it seemed too late; realising the Hilda was not entirely present, the enraged Barr seemed to be about to focus the huge potential of his matrix on her helpless physical body, and just as the matrix appeared to blaze into action, there was a strange fizzle and a violent explosion of blue, crimson and white psi fire ripped through it, throwing Barr to the ground.

At that point, the study door burst open and Inspector Letton exploded into the study.


	14. Chapter 14

Next door in the office, Leonie restrained her relief and eased her hold on the energon rings.

"We must go now," Callista told her foster-mother gently. "Ellemir and Andrew are watching for us; we dare not stay longer."

Len realised that something had to be said between Leonie, Damon, and Callista, and she gently withdrew Hilda and Copper from the circle-in-the-overworld. Once out, she sent Copper into the Study, and herself turned to monitor Leonie, since Damon was now himself in rapport.

Leonie looked at the familiar thought-forms of Damon and Callista, and held out her hands. "I do not know what to say."

"Then say nothing, Leonie," Damon told her, and Leonie remembered that this man loved her still. "We understand. You do not hate us any longer, do you?"

Leonie's form wavered. "No. I have come to see that you are right in what you have said and done, and we of Arilinn were wrong. I mean it now. When I return to Darkover-"

"Say nothing of that, Leonie," Callista said gently. "That is for the future. It is enough to know that you do more than tolerate the Forbidden Tower now. That means a great deal."

Leonie held out her hands to them in blessing, and stood watching as their astral forms disappeared. Only then did she return to her body to find that only seconds had passed since the circle had broken, and that her cheeks were wet with tears. She turned to her monitor, who looked at her with a compassion that was older than her seventeen years.

"I am glad you had that, Leonie," Len said softly, but that said, Leonie saw that the violet-grey eyes were anxious. "Did the operation work?" she asked now.

"We'll have to find out," Leonie returned. "But I think," she continued as she rose to check the scene in the study, "that we are safe enough."

Her words appeared to be borne out. The Head was seated behind her desk, and her attacker was prostrate on the floor. A closer look revealed that Miss Annersley was trembling. No-one had entirely registered the presence of Inspector Letton, and he deliberately hung back in the shadows, watching.

"What happened?" Miss Annersley asked, very shakily. Copper was standing beside her, looking worried, but she was too inexperienced to know what to do. Even so, the Head's extreme pallor was evident, and Leonie cast that lady a look of concern. Had they been too late- or had that burst of psi power and energy been too much for her, caught unawares as she had been?

At that point Inspector Letton decided to make his presence known. "What's been happening here?"

Ignoring her own fatigue and the astonished man, Leonie went to the cupboard at one end of the study and retrieved a packet of biscuits she found there. She took one herself, and called the girls over. They, too, were white with exhaustion, and Leonie noted with some surprise that Flavia appeared to be in better case than Len.

"Eat!" the Keeper commanded, and Len set an example by doing so.

Hesitantly, Flavia followed, and Leonie took a biscuit and herself almost forced Hilda to eat, knowing that the other woman would not understand the importance of replenishing vital energies quickly.

"What's happened?" Inspector Letton asked again, and, for the first time, everyone appeared to take note of his presence.

"Dad!" shrieked Flavia, and, flinging the rest of her biscuit to one side, she ran straight into his arms.

"I'm here, chiya," he whispered into her hair. "I'm here." He looked up over the top of his step-daughter's red head and met the suddenly knowing eyes of Leonie. Detaching himself from Flavia- who was now ravenous and had gone to rescue her biscuit- he moved forward and bowed.

"Lady Leonie. I did not think I would find you here. You lend us grace, vai domna."

"Leonie!" Len called, from beside her brevet-aunt, "come quickly!"

Warned by Len's voice, Leonie turned and went. Hilda was now almost grey, and her eyes looked dull. Her breathing seemed shallow, and Len was obviously very worried.

"Did she eat anything?" Leonie asked.

Len nodded, trying to control her feelings. "She ate two biscuits."

"Here. Make her take more," Leonie commanded. "Then monitor. Stabilise the heartbeat and breathing- and keep calm yourself, Len. Flavia!"

Flavia turned automatically from her father.

"Use the phone and ring down to the kitchens. The number is there. Ask for hot chocolate as soon as possible, please."

Flavia nodded and obeyed, and the Keeper turned back to Len and her patient.

"Hilda!" Leonie put all her authority behind her physical and mental voice, and they saw with relief that her eyes appeared more alert.

"What's happened?" she asked, very weakly.

Len squeezed her brevet-aunt's hand very gently. "Don't worry about that now, Auntie Hilda," she said softly. "You'll be OK in a minute, I promise. Eat another biscuit. Leonie," she continued, turning towards her, "check that cupboard again. She often keeps a little kettle in there with coffee and sugar. You might be able to get something there."

Relieved, Leonie turned to go to the cupboard, but Inspector Letton had heard and he had already found and plugged in the kettle, whilst measuring out coffee and sugar.

"Plenty of sugar," Leonie cautioned.

He gave her a sidelong smile, his eyes lowered. "I know. Four spoonfuls!" At that point the kettle boiled, and he carefully poured some out. While waiting, he had also taken the precaution of adding some cold water, for there was no milk, and he did not want to give the Head burn injuries on top of everything else.

"What about him-and the matrix?" he asked suddenly, as Len persuaded Hilda to take some of the hot, sweet drink.

"Is he dead?" Flavia asked, sounding only mildly interested.

"Not sure," the Inspector admitted. Cautiously, he crossed the room and knelt down beside the fallen figure of Barr. As he did so, the eyes opened, and Flavia gasped and backed away.

"It's OK," Letton told her. "See? His eyes are quite blank. He's been burnt inside." His voice was almost pitiful, and his daughter looked at him in horror.

"Inside? How horrible!"

"That's the power of this matrix," he explained gently. "If you people hadn't acted when you did, the full force of that power would have been turned on Miss Annersley- and perhaps the school as well."

Flavia looked a little green, and the Inspector turned back. Incredibly, Barr was still breathing, but Letton knew it would not be for long. Life would serve no purpose for him now; his mind had been quite burnt out, and if he survived it would be as a physical being and no more- and that was no life for anyone.

Leonie came and stood beside him.

"He's dying," she said. It was not a question.

"Yes, Lady." He glanced at her, and saw her face was implacable.

As far as the Lady of Arilinn was concerned, justice had been served. To misuse a matrix as Barr had done was the ultimate crime on Darkover, and Letton had a feeling that there was more to this particular matrix than met the eye.

They stood together in silence, and were the only people in the room to hear and see when the dying man ceased to breathe. The destroyed gun-matrix lay beside him, the starstone black and dead. It could never be used again.

Up on the Rosleinalp, residents on the shelf were running to the chalet occupied by Luisa Aldaran and Barr. The explosion which had killed Barr had ripped through the powerful matrix that bound them together, and she too had died, falling against the furnace as she dropped, thus starting an actual fire to mimic the power of the one that had robbed her of her life.

Only the fact that their chalet stood alone, and in a clearing, prevented a more widespread tragedy across the Rosleinalp.

As she died, her own personal matrix flickered and turned black, and, far away at Zurich, Valerie Gardiner continued on her day of sight seeing, quite unaware that the trap she had harboured unawares had harmlessly disabled with the death of its creator.


	15. Chapter 15

The following afternoon everyone involved in the momentous events of the previous afternoon- apart from Damon and Callista- foregathered in Miss Annersley's private salon.

They had all recovered to a greater or lesser degree, thanks in the main to the watchfulness of both Leonie and Inspector Letton.

Leonie, aware that Flavia and Hilda in particular could suffer from threshold sickness after their baptism of fire in laran work, insisted that neither of them should be left alone that night. Inspector Letton stayed with his step-daughter, and Leonie and Len had between them kept an eye on Hilda Annersley, especially after the latter's collapse once the crisis had past.

Leonie had also known that there was a chance- slight, but there- of Len also suffering from threshold sickness, but she believed, correctly as it turned out, that the thorough training the girl had received would be her greatest safeguard. Threshold sickness normally came about when, for whatever reason, a person with laran lost control of their laran. Len, monitor-trained and qualified, had hers well under control.

"What happened to that man?" Flavia asked her father into one of those silences that can occur in conversation. The others had all attempted to speak of normal things, but now the subject was broached, they all without exception looked relieved.

Inspector Letton looked puzzled. "He died from his injuries, but you know that, Copper!"

-I know, but after that? he heard his step-daughter's mental voice say impatiently. Glancing quickly around the room, he saw that everyone else had heard it too.

"He was taken away," Inspector Letton said abruptly. He turned to Leonie. "Lady, did you know that there was a fire up on the Rosleinalp yesterday afternoon?"

"The Rosleinalp?" Len repeated.

"Luisa Aldaran," Leonie said quietly. "That's where she was staying, wasn't it?"

"Yes. It appears that she died when Barr did, when you folk destroyed the gun-matrix. In addition," the Inspector added, with a quick look at Miss Annersley, "her own personal matrix died."

"So Valerie will be freed from the trap matrix set on her by Luisa's matrix," Len said softly. "Good. That was all I was worrying over."

Leonie nodded. "It worried me too. I am glad that Valerie is safe- as indeed, she must be. I'm sure Miss Annersley would have heard if that was not so!"

The Head smiled. "Yes. I would have known very quickly, so I think you may reassure yourselves that there is nothing wrong with that young woman!"

"Unless she's still recovering from your tongue-lashing last week, Auntie," Len interjected with a saucy grin.

Miss Annersley laughed. "Well, that's all to the good!" she retorted. "A subdued Valerie means a trouble-free Valerie, and a relatively peaceful weekend for everyone else on her trip! And now," she added, looking keenly from her brevet-niece to Leonie and Inspector Letton, "I think it's time you explained a few things!"

Leonie and Inspector Letton exchanged glances. Where would they start?

Miss Annersley watched them with a flicker of amusement in her eyes. "First," she said quietly, "I must ask this. Leonie Hastur: who and what are you?"

Inspector Letton hid a grin as he watched Leonie. He had never imagined that the Lady of Arilinn could look so discomfited, but she evidently was now. He decided to take a hand.

He rose and bowed, deeply, to Miss Annersley. "Vai domna," he began, using the Darkovan honorific deliberately, "permit me to introduce you to Lady Leonie Hastur of Hastur; Keeper of Arilinn and Lady of Darkover."

Miss Annersley managed to keep her face impassive, and Leonie looked at her.

"You could be a Keeper yourself, Hilda! You are wondering where these places are, are you not?"

Hilda looked straight at her; the glimmer of amusement had gone. "I must confess that I am. I see that it is no use trying to keep these thoughts secret!"

Leonie shook her head and her face was grave. "No, Hilda," she said gently. "I know what you are thinking only because we have been linked in rapport; I would never deliberately intrude. All the same, I permitted a member of my circle to draw you into the link, and therefore, by the oath I took, I am your Keeper too."

This time, the Head permitted her confusion to show. "You must forgive me; I don't understand your allusions."

"Let's start at the beginning, Leonie," Inspector Letton suggested firmly. "Miss Annersley, prepare yourself for a shock. Leonie is not Terran. That is," he continued, "she is not of earth. Neither is she of your time zone."

"A-ha!" said Len, as several things clicked into place.

The Head ignored her. "I don't understand," she said again, bewildered.

Len, with her longer and more intimate acquaintance with both Leonie and Hilda, intervened. "I think I do, though," she said thoughtfully. "Is it a little like time zones-like-like, the difference between here and Canada?"

Inspector Letton nodded. "Exactly like that, Miss Maynard. Only on a larger scale, naturally. As you know, Leonie is a telepath, and the planet from which she comes has a large number of telepathically gifted individuals- only, on Darkover, this is known as laran."

Len nodded; she understood this. "And the telepathic gifts are really just a variety of psi gifts," she prompted, and Leonie smiled at her.

"Yes. Those gifts are often linked to the Domain families- Alton, Aldaran, Hastur, Elhalyn, Aillard, Ridenow, and Ardais. They are the Comyn- Darkovan aristocracy, in fact. At least," she went on, her face darkening a little, "we used to believe that psi gifts were limited to the families of the Domains, and only to Darkover. Now- I am no longer certain."

Len nodded again, but she could not barricade the question that was in her mind. If Leonie believed that there was no laran outside Darkover and Comyn, why had she even attempted to train Len herself? Let alone Copper?

"Very well," said the Head in a resigned tone. "Let us leave that aside. I must admit that it does not come as a total surprise, Leonie. There have been times when I have- seen- pictures in your mind, and I knew that they weren't of our time."

Leonie nodded, but Hilda continued.

"Given that, given the fact that you've obviously managed to cross time and half a galaxy, I must ask: why did you? Did you choose deliberately to come here and now- did you know about the Chalet School before you came?"

Leonie bowed her head and acknowledged Hilda's right to ask this. "I did know," she said softly. "In Darkover, we take telepathic training very seriously, and this is done in towers- of which Arilinn is the most important."

She paused for a moment and then went on. This was painful, still, but in all fairness it must be told. "Of late years, the number of telepaths in Comyn have dropped. Fewer and fewer of our young and gifted telepaths choose to work in the Towers. It is a hard life, and much must be sacrificed.I cannot blame them for that."

Leonie rose suddenly, and crossed the room in a swirl of crimson draperies. The sun streaming in through the window glinted on the curling copper bracelets on her wrists and set her hair on fire. The onlookers found it easy to believe that she came from another planet and galaxy. At that moment she looked- unearthly.

"As you have been told, I am Keeper of Arilinn. I am," Leonie continued, with a hint of her old pride, "the most powerful, most revered, most feared woman on Darkover. I am Keeper, leronis, priestess, sorceress- or that is how the common people see me and my work."

"Goodness!" Copper interjected, obviously awed. "And to think that here you've just been the junior mistress when you're actually more important than the Head herself!"

"Not that that's saying much, Flavia!" Miss Annersley told her blandly, but with a trace of irony that made Flavia flush and subside. Len flashed a sympathetic grin at her, but she was too interested in what Leonie had to say to do more.

Leonie had laughed at Flavia's words, but now she grew serious again.

"You must understand," she said, almost anxiously. "I am all this because of old ideas, old superstitions. They are not true. It is not necessary for a Keeper to live as I have done, alone, separated from emotion and humanity by a formidable wall of conditioning and training."

Leonie smiled, a little sadly, as she remembered the rigour of that training, and all its attendant sufferings. It would never happen again, she vowed. Her successor would be trained with the old care, but new understanding. Never again would the Lady of Arilinn be expected to become something more, and, at the same time, something less than human.

"And I know this now by two things. One of those is the time I have spent here, and especially the time I have spent with Len." The Keeper smiled at Len, and the girl blinked. "Len, you are an empath. One of the most powerful empaths I have ever trained. Because of that, you are an unusually gifted monitor, and if we were on Darkover, I would be proud to ask you to join my own circle at Arilinn. But we are not. Which brings me to my other- epiphany."

Leonie stopped again, and took a deep breath. Her voice was light and emotionless as she continued.

"Ten years ago, I was unwell, and I knew I was growing old. A Keeper's work is tremendously demanding, but I have sworn never to lay down my place until I have trained my successor. And so I tried- many, many times. Time after time I lost my chosen successor, either to her own ill health, or to other Towers who did not have even one fully functioning circle.

'At last, after many years, I finally succeeded, and Callista Lanart-Alton, as she then was, became Keeper with me in Arilinn. This year I have spent here would have been my last at Arilinn; then I would have laid down my place and Callista would become Lady after me. Only Callista was kidnapped, and rescued by a Terranan, an earthman, and they fell in love."

Leonie made a helpless gesture with her hands. "Am I saying too much?"

"No. Please continue," Miss Annersley continued, her eyes soft. Like Len, she was an empath, and she realised how difficult telling this tale was for Leonie.

"Thank you. Tradition says that a Keeper- any Keeper, not just the Keeper of Arilinn- must remain chaste and unmarried. There are reasons for that, but they can be overcome- we know that now. But tradition became a superstition and a law, and Callista had to leave. She was very ill, and her brother in law, Damon, had to search to discover a way to help her. He succeeded, and, in so doing, founded what has become known as the Forbidden Tower."

Leonie swallowed. "Because he and Callista were both trained at Arilinn, and because they broke the laws of Arilinn, they had to be challenged. They had to prove that they could keep their Tower in the face of the strongest opposition Darkover could provide. So we fought a telepathic battle, with Damon and his circle on one side, and me and mine on the other. We lost. But- I reconciled with Damon and Callista, after a fashion, but I did not mean it I felt that I had been betrayed."

"What next?" Len prompted gently.

Leonie shrugged. "I was weak, I admit it. I became depressed, useless. I did no work in the circles, leaving everything to Janine, who has been Keeper trained. Only- she is not powerful, and she has a narrow-minded approach that I believe could cause great trouble in the future. And all this time we still needed more telepaths to train. So my brother, Lorill, who is Regent of Darkover, suggested that I come here to seek them."

Len's eyes were wide.

"But- that's what you attacked Luisa Aldaran for doing!" she cried.

"Not quite," Leonie told her softly. "Luisa, I believe, had planned to hand telepaths- both here, and on Darkover-over to the Empire authorities, to be tested and exploited. Others she would have trained herself, and used to effect a coup d'etat. So much was evident when Inspector Letton went to clear the rubble from the fires."

"What did you want to do?" Len asked, with a strange intensity.

"When I came here, I was bitter and sad. I wanted to find telepaths who were young and malleable and could be trained using the old methods- to find someone who could possibly take over from me, someone who could keep the Towers alive, and thus allow the old sciences of Darkover to survive. You must understand. Without our matrix sciences, Darkover is primitive, and we would lose our independence. But now I would not take one of you. I have told you, Len, that I would have you for Arilinn if you so desired- but, I cannot."

"Why not?" Len demanded. "If I wanted to go-" Her tone was so nearly belligerent that Miss Annersley looked up.

"That's enough, Helena," she said quietly. "Let Leonie finish, please."

"Partly because it would be wrong. You would have had to handle all the normal deprivations of further matrix training, whilst at the same time being several galaxies away from home. No, Len. There are some who would not believe this, but not even I could be that ruthless- or cruel. Not even for Arilinn."

"I don't believe that you are cruel," Hilda Annersley said gently. "Or as inflexible as you appear, Leonie Hastur."

"Thank you," Leonie said again. "I can NOT take you, Len. It is possible for me to travel backwards in time, for that has passed, but not for you to travel into the future. Do you understand? The attempt could, and possibly would, kill you. I will not take that risk."

Leonie swung away from them again, and she appeared remote- not the passionate woman she was revealing herself to be. Only now they all recognised that remoteness for what it was: conditioned armour and a training that had gone cell-deep and was now automatic. It had relaxed somewhat, but Leonie had been Keeper since the age of sixteen, and for her it was too late.

She could never have what Callista now had, or what her future successor would have. But at least she had managed to salvage her relationship with Damon and Callista- until now, the only two she had ever loved, apart from Lorill- and that was something.

"I am sorry," Miss Annersley said softly. "You have given us a great deal, Leonie, and it seems that we can give nothing back."

"We can," said Copper boldly. "I'll come, if you'll have me, Leonie."

"You can't," Len argued. "Didn't you hear what she just said, Copper?"

"I heard," said Copper, her chin determined. "And I can." She turned to her stepfather. "Go on, Dad! Tell them what you told me."


	16. Chapter 16

Everyone turned to look at Inspector Letton, who gave them a smile that was almost sheepish. "She's right, Lady Leonie," he admitted. "She's like you."

"Darkovan?" Leonie asked cautiously, with another glance at the girl's bright head.

Inspector Letton nodded. "And Comyn," he amended. "She's Comynara, Leonie, and your own kinswoman. You see, on Darkover, her name is Flavia Hastur-Ansell."

"Letton!" corrected Flavia herself, and her stepfather smiled at her.

"Letton, if you will. It hardly matters after all. To the Comyn, all that will matter is that you are Hastur." His voice was rather bitter as he ended, but they took no notice of that.

"Who was her mother?" Leonie asked, her encyclopaedic knowledge of Comyn genealogy kicking in.

"A distant cousin of yours. Flavia Hastur-Lanart."

Leonie smiled. "Lanart? A connection to Callista too, then!" She paused. "Flavia Hastur-Lanart. I do not believe she ever came to Arilinn."

"She didn't," Inspector Letton confirmed. "Her brother, Flavian, did though."

"I see," Leonie murmured. She eyed Flavia speculatively as an incongruity from the matrix work they had just done returned to her.

"Right," said Len firmly, ignoring these undertones. "Let me get this straight. You're saying"- she jabbed her finger at Inspector Letton- "that she"- the finger indicated Flavia- "is actually Darkovan. So who are you, Inspector Letton? And why," she continued, her eyes beginning to flash, "did you spin that tale to the Head about kidnapping?"

"It wasn't a tale!" Letton defended. "Flavia was in danger of kidnapping. I just couldn't tell Miss Annersley the real truth, but it was close enough. As you know, Luisa Aldaran and Barr operated under the names of Louella and Sam Manley, so all I actually er- invented- was the grudge against me. I could hardly expect Miss Annersley to believe a story of intergalactic politics and feuds!"

"H'mm," was all Len would vouchsafe. "Well, if Flavia is Darkovan, what are you?"

Letton smiled. "I'm Terran- from earth. I was born in Berkshire, if you really want to know, and entered the Terran spaceforce when I was twenty. I did become a security agent there, so my title of 'Inspector' is not a complete lie."

"Were you really married to Flavia's mother?" Miss Annersley asked, speaking for the first time in a while.

Letton smiled sadly. "Yes. That wasn't a lie. Leonie," he said, turning to her, "do you remember that spate of kidnappings some years ago? Several Hastur girls vanished- including, I believe, Elorie Hastur?"

Leonie looked sorrowful. "That is so. Elorie was horribly abused, as I have reason to know. She has renounced her blood and rides with the Renunciates as 'Camilla'. Indeed, I believe she has blocked out both her laran and her former life. It was a great pity, for she showed great talent, and could have become Keeper- even at Arilinn. But she had no desire for that training. But what of it?"

"Flavia's mother was one of the other kidnapped girls. She was found, and rescued, by Tom Ansell in an operation not unlike that used to rescue Callista from the cat-men- only in her case, it was the Aldarans and a Terran, rather than the people at Armida," Letton finished thoughtfully.

"I am surprised a daughter of Hastur would have anything to do with Aldaran!" Leonie retorted with all the pride of her house and caste. "She must have been terrified!"

"She was only fifteen, so yes, she was afraid," the Inspector told her. "But you are wrong about the Aldarans, Leonie. They are not all bad.They did all they could for Flavia, and she was grateful to them. All the same," he added with a small smile, "she was enough of a Hastur to be glad to escape them!" and Leonie smiled unwillingly.

"My mother was only fifteen!" Copper put in at this point. Her father had omitted this piece of information the night before, and now he frowned to himself. He had tried, as far as he could, to limit the story he told Copper according to her Terran age and experience, but in the interest of speaking with Leonie, had had forgotten that.

"Yes."

"So how old was she when I was born?" Copper demanded, her grey eyes wide.

"Sixteen, Copper. That's not as young in Darkover as it is here," her step-father told her.

"Darkover sounds awfully medieval!" Len interjected at this point, disapproval edging her tones.

"Don't be rude, Len." Miss Annersley reproved gently. "It's a different culture. In fact," she continued firmly, "let me remind you that several of the girls with whom your mother was at school were married and had children when they were very little older than you are now! I imagine," she went on, looking inquiringly at Leonie, "that marriage and motherhood comes later for women in the Towers?"

Leonie gave her a rather bleak smile. "For a Keeper, usually never. For other women- it depends on their families. Not all Domain families think it an honour for a girl to waste her most fertile years in the confines of a Tower. I have shocked you a little, I think," she added.

"No- not shocked," Miss Annersley told her. "But surprised, perhaps. Is child-bearing so very important to women in Darkover?"

"To the Domains, it is all-important," Leonie said bitterly. "Only occassionally are girls permitted to put aside all thoughts of marriage for Tower work. I was permitted because I was Hastur, and had already refused to be Queen. Who else could offer for me? And Callista, she was permitted because the Lanarts are an old house, but they are not one of the great families. In any case, it is an honour to be chosen to work for Arilinn."

"Like getting into one of the really great universities," Len suggested. She was starting to recover her temper a little and to think more carefully about what she was hearing.

Leonie saw the picture in Len's mind of the spires of Oxford and nodded. "I suppose it is. You see," she went on, responding to the Head's question, "We have always believed that laran is in the blood- that it is genetic. And that all the gifts are genetic too. Without laran and our matrix sciences, Darkover would be what the Empire think us- primitive. So the survival of these sciences is paramount! Thus the Towers, and the emphasis on child-bearing for all women of the Domains, particularly those whose talents are very strong."

"Does that mean any children I have will inherit laran?" Len asked, her cheeks flushing a little. This was not normally a topic she discussed with anyone.

"They could do," Leonie said slowly. "As you have inherited it from your mother. Mrs Maynard, I believe, is also a very powerful telepath and empath, but she has learned control from somewhere."

"We've always said Jo had an uncanny ability to get into the skins of others," Miss Annersley admitted, "so I can easily believe that."

"But what about the rest of them?" Copper demanded. "There's eleven of them!" The only child said this with considerable shock, and Len giggled whilst the adults smiled.

"They could have laran," Leonie admitted. She turned to Len. "As monitor, it will be your responsibility to watch out for it, especially for anything resembling threshold sickness when you are oath-bound to act. This is serious. Will you swear it to me, Helena?"

Startled by the sudden solemnity and the use of her full name, Len nodded.

"I will swear it," and Leonie nodded, satisfied.

There was a pause, then Flavia turned back to Letton.

"You still haven't told me," she said. "How did my mother die?"

There was a long pause before Inspector Letton met his step-daughter's eyes.

"I didn't lie to you, Copper," he told her. "She really did die when you were little. It was nearly a year after we were married, and HQ wanted to send me back to Terra. No," he admitted, "that's not true. They thought I could be useful to them in Darkover, married to a daughter of the Domains. I decided I didn't want to spend my days as a spy, however, and Flavia felt torn between me, her fear of the Aldarans, and a suspicion that the Hasturs would not receive her if she tried to return to them."

Deliberately, he refrained from glancing at Leonie, but Leonie, knowing what he meant, flushed a little. Letton did not see it and carried on.

"So we boarded a space ship bound for here. Only, Flavia had not realised that she was pregnant until we had left Darkover. Star travel is dangerous for young children and unborn babies, and well-" He paused and shrugged.

"Did the child have laran?" Leonie asked gently.

"Yes." The reply was very soft, but Leonie understood the implications of that, and, after a moment, so did Copper. She had remained in light rapport with her father, and had seen the mental images he had not verbally described, and now she looked horrified.

"The baby killed my mother, didn't it?" she whispered.

Inspector Letton nodded silently, and it was Leonie who explained more fully.

"Occasionally it happens that an unborn child has such powerful laran that childbirth- or miscarriage- can be very dangerous. That is why we take childbirth so seriously on Darkover, and if necessary, a Tower-trained midwife will stay throughout the delivery, and her task will be to reassure the baby as well as care for the mother. That is especially important when there is a possibility that the child has inherited the Alton Gift."

"I thought you said the Alton Gift was forced rapport?" Len protested.

"So it is. Because of that, anger in an Alton is dangerous. On Darkover, we say that the anger of an Alton can kill."

"But my mother was Hastur-Lanart!" Copper put in.

"The Lanarts are a cadet branch of the Alton line," Leonie said softly. "Your grandmother was Lanart-Alton, as Callista was."

"I still don't understand!"

Strangely enough, it was Miss Annersley who responded. "I think I do. Flavia, most people are afraid of death. But do you not think that birth must also be frightening, and that is why we don't remember it?"

Copper, her eyes wide at this new thought, nodded, and the Head continued.

"Fear can be irrational, and it can lead, sometimes, to the frightened person lashing out. It is not always possible to communicate through that fear. Therefore, a child with the psi powers Leonie describes could well kill- by striking out with all its force. Do you understand?"

The question was unnecessary. Copper's white face made it clear that she did understand.

Leonie watched her closely for a moment before saying, "I think you are beginning to understand something of your heritage, Flavia. Do you still wish to come with me to Arilinn?"

Flavia chewed her lip for a moment. She looked very young, and Miss Annersley moved to protest. Leonie, seeing her gesture and knowing what was in her mind, shook her head.

"No, Hilda. She herself volunteered. She is the right age to begin training- and she is Hastur, although she does not yet understand what that means. She must choose."

Flavia stopped chewing and faced her kinswoman. "I know I need to learn how-how to control myself," she said, her voice shaking a little. "I think that I would like to come to Arilinn with you- and-and I want to see my mother's world and the place where I was born, but-"

"Not yet?" her step-father intervened, and Flavia nodded gratefully. He turned to the Keeper. "What about it, Leonie? Copper's barely fourteen. I know you like to train your girls young, but is that so necessary now? You yourself have declared that the old Way must be thrown down- and it was only under the old Way of Arilinn that girls must begin their training so very young- isn't that so?"

Leonie nodded slowly. Letton looked at her and continued swiftly.

"Leave Copper here- till she is sixteen, anyhow, and see what she wants then. Len can do some early work- can't she?"

Leonie smiled. "Yes. She qualified to teach Copper the basics, at least, and a little control. Before I leave, Len, I will show you several new techniques that will help you there."

"You mean I can stay?" Copper asked breathlessly.

"You may indeed. Your father is right. You have the opportunity to enjoy what is left of your childhood and girlhood. I did not have that, and I think that you should."

"Oh thank you! But I'll come. Really, I'll come." Flavia hesitated for a moment and then continued, rather shyly, "On the word of a Hastur, I'll come."

Leonie's brows went up at the sound of this Darkovan watchword, but she smiled. "Very well. And Flavia, if you change your mind, you must tell me."

There was an awkward pause before Len spoke.

"What happens now?"

Leonie turned towards her. "I will present Hilda and Copper with their own matrices. Letton, I believe you already have one?"

Letton's jaw dropped. "How did you know?"

"They are all recorded on the screens at Arilinn, of course," she retorted. Then she looked at the Head with a glint of uncharacteristic humour. "I have not finished with you yet, Hilda. You need training badly. I cannot give it- except to present you with your matrix and key you into it. I'll do the same for Flavia. Subsequent training," she continued, with a rare twinkle, "will be given by my monitor and your brevet- niece, Len."

The expressions on the faces of both Miss Annersley and Len were so startled that Copper snorted, and Leonie had to bite her lip.

"I can't do that!" Len protested, rather wildly.

"Of course you can!" Leonie told her firmly. "You must. You are sworn to!"

Len subsided with a mumble that made Leonie and the Head exchange a glance of amusement.

"Don't look so worried, Len," her brevet-aunt told her, "it won't be that bad. Just think of it as good practice for the future!" Whereat Len forgot where she was and grimaced horribly, prompting a laugh which eased the atmosphere considerably.

Leonie glanced around at her companions, aware of the sudden feeling of warmth.

Then, in another moment, she dropped into rapport with Len, who held her hand out to the Head. Miss Annersley, as a novice at this, needed the physical contact to precipitate the mental, but she dropped so smoothly into the developing circle that Leonie sent waves of approval towards her. Copper and Inspector Letton followed, and for several moments they maintained the circle, each drawing sustenance and warmth from the combined intimacy the circle provided.

It was, in fact, the best way of providing closure for the events of the afternoon, although Leonie had not altogether acted consciously. She held the circle together gently, using the opportunity to evaluate the gifts of each. When she came to Flavia, she was relieved.

The girl was a good telepath, with what appeared to be an unusual combination of gifts- the strength of an emerging Alton Gift, and, more importantly, the possible power of the Hastur Gift of the living matrix. Leonie felt well pleased with her choice, and, acting gently, shared the holding the rings of the circle with her prospective successor. Then, still gently, the Keeper of Arilinn dropped out of the contact, leaving the circle, for a long moment, in the hands of Flavia Hastur-Letton.

The other members of the circle felt the change, but remained secure. Only when Flavia faltered a little did Leonie quickly and expertly reassume the position of Keeper- but only for a short time. All the same, when she moved to dissolve the circle, they all knew that this was the real goodbye. They would not all be in the same room again, regardless of what might happen in the overworld.


	17. Chapter 17

_This is-obviously- the final chapter. Thank you for reading and reviewing. _

EPILOGUE: FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

Flavia Hastur-Letton entered Leonie's room at Arilinn. Now twenty-nine, she was tall and slender, with flame-red hair coiled high in a ceremonial coronet. As she had wished, she had stayed at the Chalet until the June after her sixteenth birthday- and since by then Len, too, had left- Flavia had reminded her father of the promise she had made her kinswoman, and they had returned to Darkover. The next years had been long and hard, but Flavia found the work deeply satisfying and never regretted her decision. This, she felt, was her life.

Now, wearing for the first time the elaborate ceremonial crimson robes and copper ornaments of a Keeper, she bowed, deeply and formally, to Leonie of Arilinn.

The older woman came forward from where she had been standing with Damon, Callista, and Damon's _nedestra_ daughter, Cleindori.

Leonie smiled at the girl before her, and Callista felt her own eyes fill at the warmth of that smile.

When she herself had taken the Oath, Leonie had been remote. Her time at the Chalet School had changed that, and while she would always been impassive in her work, she had learnt that she could feel emotion and affection without endangering herself, her Circle, or her work.

Flavia was repeating the terms of a Keeper's Oath- necessarily modified now, for even Leonie had agreed that it was no longer necessary for a Keeper to live alone and unloved.

Slowly, Leonie raised her hands and Flavia came forward to touch them- the feather light touch of a telepath.

"Will you abide by the terms of this Keeper's Oath, Flavia Hastur-Letton?" Leonie asked.

"I will abide, my Lady," Flavia returned, as she had been taught.

Leonie stepped back and bowed. "Then, as Lady of Arilinn, I declare you Keeper." She turned to the audience, and indicated Flavia with a crimson gesture. "Flavia of Arilinn!" and the room exploded into congratulations.

Flavia, as she swung little Cleindori into the air, met Damon Ridenow's eyes. One day the child she held would take this same oath, and because of what had happened at the Chalet School, she would be permitted to live her life as woman and Keeper both. The Forbidden Tower had been avenged, and was no longer forbidden. Triumph at what they had all accomplished surged through Flavia, backed by all the power of the Hastur Gift.

In the study at the Chalet School, Hilda Annersley looked up from her lists to meet the eyes of her deputy, Len Entwistle. This was her last term. In June, she would step down and Len would take her place as Headmistress.

"She's done it," Len whispered, looking at the glowing fires within her matrix.

Hilda smiled as she cupped her own matrix in her hands.

"I am glad. She will do well- as you will, Len!"

Len flushed. "Len of the Chalet School doesn't have quite the same ring as Flavia of Arilinn, though!"

The Head laughed, and went to refill their cups. "Maybe not. However, I have a toast to propose," she continued, raising her cup. "To the new Headmistress of the Chalet School- and the new Keeper of Arilinn!"

Their matrices flared again, and the two women smiled. Somehow, they knew that Leonie and Flavia had repeated that toast, in their own ways.

THE END


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